Early this morning, Sprint and Softbank held a press conference in Japan to officially confirm that Softbank will be purchasing a majority stake in Sprint for $20.1 billion. The acquisition consists of Softbank purchasing $12.1 billion in current shares at $7.30 per share, and the issuance of $8 billion worth of new shares. Following this acquisition, a newly formed company will emerge – New Sprint - of which Softbank will own 70%, and other shareholders will own 30%.
The boards of directors of both companies have already approved this transaction, which means that only current shareholders and regulatory bodies will have to approve this still. Dan Hesse will stay on as Sprint’s CEO, and as a member of the board of directors, and Sprint is also not required to take any additional action with Clearwire. Additionally, New Sprint’s headquarters will remain in Kansas.
Perhaps most significantly, this deal with give Sprint a much-needed cash infusion to the tune of $8 billion, which will allow Sprint to speed up its deployment of LTE. This extra cash might also be used for more acquisitions of smaller mobile operators and spectrum. In other words, this is a great day for Sprint, and there are almost no reasons for Sprint’s current shareholders to vote against this deal.
The deal is expected to be fully closed by mid-2013.
[Sprint]
Now we should get some real speed around here!
Is New Sprint really going to be the name after this is done?
NEWS PRINT?
I doubt it’ll be called New Sprint. That would be so tacky. Probably gonna stay Sprint. I wonder what this will mean for plans and coverage…
Let the speculation begin on what will change…a lot of people seem to already be worried about legacy plans.
Maybe the cash infusion will allow Sprint to bring back the premier program. A man can dream…
Hope it goes well!
I wonder how Sprint will change
Hopefully all will work out and this will be a good thing for Sprint AND its customers.
I hope it does not go the way of New Coke.
Actually, this appears to be good news all around, though I don’t know if it is enough to keep me in the fold. Somewhere there is a Galaxy S3 with my name on it.
wonder if i will be able to get out of my contract because of this deal.
Hmmm curious to know if this means new Terms of Service will come out aka get out of contract free cards?
They better start speeding up their LTE roll out, if current stock holders approve of this transaction
Whaaaaaaat?!
The “New Sprint” name appears to be no joke. As per the Wall Street Journal: “Softbank will set up a new U.S. subsidiary, New Sprint. This company will buy a $3.1 billion convertible senior bond from Sprint. The bond will have a seven-year term and 1% coupon rate, and will be convertible into Sprint common stock at $5.25 per share. Sprint will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of New Sprint, which will become a publicly traded company.”
Here’s to hoping Softbank wants to push out the JB update ASAP.
Please, please don’t turn out like New Coke! I don’t want to find myself craving Sprint Classic.
Now that Sprint is no longer broke, maybe we will see JB on the EVO 4G LTE sooner rather than later………
Can’t see them ditching unlimited data until at least a few years out IF they are able to build a substantially larger subscriber base. Unlimited data is their biggest selling point right now.
me too on the jb. Hoping if they don’t change unlimited data. IF they feel they have too, it better not affect current customers or i’m gone.
lame name for better overage?…..fair trade….
I think this is great for the American Cell phone industry, although if Sprint does move away from the Unlimited plan there will be more problems that will occur. I hope that this helps the market to expand and not limit the consumers choice. I have had Sprint for 4 years now the one reason I started with Sprint was the plan if it goes I Go…if they do change the name in any way watch for the contracts to be changing as well
I think this new money will allow Sprint to renegotiate their iPhone deal with Apple. Sprint will commit to buying EVEN MORE iPhones than they’ve already promised to buy, arguing that 1) they have more money to buy stuff and 2) once they get all these customers, they’ll have still more money and 3) once they have all these customers and money, they will have the resources to build a kick-ass network.
Sounds pretty f*cking stupid when you write it out, doesn’t it. But this is exactly the “business” strategy Sprint has employed since they got their first Android phone. Hopefully Softbank will bring some sense into this mess.
Hopefully this will bode well for long time sprint customers like me
Wow, that’s some serious money moving around. Maybe they can take some of that money to invest in a better marketing team if “New Sprint” is the best they can come up with. Also, fix the connection issues plaguing the North East!