For a while now, Sprint parent company Softbank has been in talks with Deutsche Telekom to work out a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile. According to Nikkei, however, this may not happen after all.
Softbank, parent company of Sprint now plans to call off merger negotiations with T-Mobile because the companies have not been able to come to an agreement on what ownership would look like post-merger. T-Mobile has over 10 million more US subscriber than Sprint, it was speculated that the primary owner after the merger would be Deutsche Telekom. Previously it was thought that Softbank would be fine with that, but that is not the case, according to Nikkei.
So, what happened exactly? Softbank’s board reportedly voted on Friday to not give up control of the combined company, therefore said to call of merger negotiations. This, however, more than likely won’t be the last time we hear of Sprint and T-Mobile merger talks.
Softbank hopes that today’s news will have Deutsche Telekom to reconsider its position on majority ownership. Nikkei says that Softbank will only “propose ending the negotiations,” but leaves room for the merger talks to continue under different terms.
