Softbank CEO admits to considering MetroPCS bid
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Image credit: Danny Choo Some surprising things have happened surrounding Sprint over the past few days. According to comments made by Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, we may not have seen the last of them either.
Just a few days ago, in a move that almost nobody expected to happen, Sprint acquired Clearwire, picking up a large chunk of spectrum in the process. Since Sprint was in the process of closing the deal on its recent acquisition by Softbank, it didn’t seem likely that they would be buy any companies during that time period.
After that acquisition, it would be reasonable to expect that no new purchases would be made for a while, but Son’s comments in a recent Wall Street Journal interview seem to point otherwise. Son said “We shouldn’t rule out any opportunity or alternative.” When pressed for details, Son wouldn’t go into specifics, simply saying “I will be aggressive—that’s all.”
While Sprint was already in place as the third largest wireless carrier in the U.S., behind Verizon and AT&T, a Softbank buyout of MetroPCS would help Sprint to close the gap between themselves and AT&T. Softbank’s acquisition of Sprint has already given the company money it desperately needed to strengthen its position.
Before
Softbank paid $20 billion for a 70 percent stake of the company, Sprint
was looking at a costly network upgrade that would likely be slowed
down by lack of funding. Now they are in a better position to upgrade
their network as well as take any other opportunities that may come
along.Softbank will take its position as majority shareholder of Sprint over the course of a few steps. First, Softbank will buy $3 million worth of bonds that convert to Sprint shares and pay the rest in two later installments.
CEO of Sprint, Dan Hesse said “Think of it almost as an insurance policy,” adding “It’s some money in the bank until the deal closes that, for some reason, if we wanted to do something we could.” Given the events of the last week, it’s looking more and more likely that Sprint may indeed find a use for that money, whatever it may be.
Do you think that a Softbank acquisition of MetroPCS could happen? Or was Softbank’s CEO merely thinking out loud during the interview?
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