Just a day after Sprint's acquisition of Clearwire reached completion, the same thing has happened with the merger of SoftBank and Sprint. The two carriers announced the news this afternoon, declaring that SoftBank has officially acquired 72 percent of Sprint shares at a rate of $7.65 per share. In total, SoftBank has invested $21.6 billion into Sprint, consisting of $16.6 billion for Sprint stockholders and $5 billion of new capital.

Now that the deal is done, SoftBank owns 78 percent of New Sprint, while Sprint holds 22 percent of the company. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse will remain at his position and will also serve on Sprint's board of directors, while SoftBank CEO Masayoshi will serve as Chairman of Sprint's board. Admiral Michael G. Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will also serve on the Sprint board as Security Director. Sprint's headquarters will remain in Overland Park, Kan.

The merger of SoftBank and Sprint has gone through a long, bumpy road that began back in October 2012. During the deal's journey to completion, Dish Network jumped into the mix and attempted to buy Sprint for itself, but the company ended up withdrawing its offer after SoftBank sweetened its own bid for Sprint. Now SoftBank and Sprint have finally consummated their deal, and it'll be interesting to see how quickly we begin to see SoftBank's influence on Sprint. The Japanese carrier is pumping $1.9 billion of its $5 billion in new capital into Sprint at closing, so there's definitely some cash for the two companies to play with.

Via SoftBank (PDF link), Sprint