Sprint Plans to Merge with T-Mobile

Two major wireless carriers in the United States are about to merge into one company. The combined company will be called T-Mobile and will be based in Bellevue, Washington. The current T-Mobile CEO John Legere will run the company, and T-Mobile’s current COO Mike Sievert will be the new company’s COO and President.

Merger Plans to Lower Prices

By combining into one company, Sprint and T-Mobile believe they will be able to lower their prices. They also hope they will be able to pursue overtaking their competition, AT&T and Verizon.

T-Mobile and Sprint have been in talks for quite some time. Sprint originally broached the idea of buying T-Mobile back in 2014, but nothing came of their proposal. Talks between the two companies resumed, however, in May of 2017.

Both Sprint and T-Mobile batted the ball back and forth on which company would buy which. Sprint’s offer was tabled in October 2017, followed by an offer by T-Mobile that failed in November 2017.

But it looks like Sprint and T-Mobile have finally come to a decision. CNBC said that the two companies were closing in on a merger on Friday. The merger is worth $26 billion.

Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s majority owner, will hold a 42 percent stake in the new company, and Sprint majority owner SoftBank will hold 27 percent. Public stakeholders will hold the rest. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claire and SoftBank SEO Masayoshi Son will sit on the new company’s board.

This merger comes in an opportune time when T-Mobile and Sprint are ready to send out their new 5G network across the U.S. The new company will serve almost 100 million customers.