Sprint and T-Mobile are supposedly about to finally agree to a merger, according to a CNBC report, which states that the two companies are approaching a $ 26 billion deal this Sunday. [19659002] It is rumored that the two companies merged since 2014, when Sprint tried to buy T-Mobile. The talks resumed again last year, before ending last November when T-Mobile and Sprint could not find mutual ground. At the beginning of April, however, The Wall Street Journal reported that the two companies had returned to the negotiating table for the third time in four years, and if the CNBC sources are correct, it seems that this time, the merger could finally be happening.
The difference this time is said to be a change of opinion in Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank (owner of Sprint), with factors such as corporate tax rate more low, the costs of deploying 5G and the increased competition from cable providers that help tilt the balance towards a merger, although it is still possible for things to fall apart again.
Of course, even if the two companies accept a merger, there is still a good chance that it will not happen. The US cellular market UU It's notoriously short on the competition, with only four main operators to choose from, and the combination of Sprint and T-Mobile together drastically reduces that number. We've come this way before in 2011, when AT & T tried to buy T-Mobile, only to find fierce resistance from the Department of Justice and FCC, which ultimately blocked the sale.
That said, we are in a very different political climate now that we were in 2011, with a FCC chief who seems happy to let the main companies run rampant instead of regulating things, so if an agreement is reached , anything could happen.