Rumors of Sprint making a move to acquire T-Mobile have been floating around since late 2013, but now it looks like that’s all coming to an end.
Sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal say that Sprint is abandoning its effort to acquire T-Mobile. The decision was made after Sprint and parent company SoftBank determined that it would be too hard to get regulatory approval for the deal.
That’s not the only big news coming out of the Sprint camp today, though, as it’s also said that the big yellow carrier plans to replace current CEO Dan Hesse. No replacements have been named.
While neither Sprint nor T-Mobile made any public announcements regarding a potential deal, rumors surrounding the matter have been floating around for some time. Because the deal would see the number of major U.S. carriers drop from four to three, though, it seemed unlikely that the government would give the transaction the green light.
It’s also worth noting that T-Mobile recently got an offer from French telecom Iliad SA. However, it’s said that T-Mobile has denied that offer, with some sources describing it as “dead on arrival” because the offer was too low. There’s no word yet on if Iliad plans to bump up its bid.
Right now it’s unclear how this whole matter will play out. It’s going to be interesting to watch even though Sprint and T-Mo won’t be merging, though: not only do we still have the T-Mo-Iliad SA situation to watch, but we have to see who Sprint brings on as its new CEO. And considering how T-Mo could very well pass Sprint in subscriber count if current trends continue, the new Sprint CEO will have their work cut out for them.
UPDATE: Two sources speaking to Bloomberg claim that Sprint will replace Dan Hesse with Marcelo Claure, founder cellphone distributor Brightstar.
Thanks, Anthony!
