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US: T-Mobile buyout plan said to materialize

By  |  January 19, 2014

Sources told reporters late last week that the process for a potential Sprint/T-Mobile merger has formally begun after weeks of acquisition rumors.

According to the sources, Sprint Corp’s parent company SoftBank is reportedly in talks with T-Mobile US majority owner Deutsche Telekom to discuss possible obstacles of such a merger, which would combine the US’s third- and fourth-place mobile operators.

Should an offer be made, SoftBank would bid for the 67 percent of T-Mobile owned by Deutsche Telekom. The sources said the companies are also discussing the logistics of combining the two wireless companies.

Rumors have spread for weeks concerning a possible merger, as well as whether a deal could even be possible; many experts have said the deal would not make it past antitrust regulators, which blocked AT&T’s attempted buyout of T-Mobile in 2011 in order to preserve competition in the industry.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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