Sprint gives up on plan to buy T-Mobile, fires CEO

By

sprint-tmobile

Sprints is giving up on its dream to buy T-Mobile and merge into a mega-carrier powerful enough to take on AT&T and Verizon, after months of pursuing a multi-billion acquisition of the magenta-hued UnCarrier.

Winning approval from regulators was deemed to big an obstacle for the merger to overcome, and according to the Wall Street Journal, Sprint has decided to end acquisition talks altogether.

Sprint, which is controlled by SoftBank Corp in Japan, is also planning to name a new CEO, reports Bloomberg. Dan Hesse has led the company since 2007, but will be replaced Marcelo Claure from Brightstar, after the company lost 245,000 monthly subscribers in its June quarter.

Marcelo Claure joined Sprint’s board of directors back in January. Softbank Corp also owns a majority stake in Brightstar, which Claure founded in 1997 and owns the remainder of the company.

As the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier, Sprint has been bleeding subscribers over the past year, while T-Mobile has quickly become the fastest growing carrier in the country. A merger of the two could have created a carrier with enough subscribers, resources and coverage to rival AT&T and Verizon, but after AT&T failed to convince regulators to let it buy T-Mobile back in 2011, it appears Sprint has decided its luck would be no better.

French-based Iliad SA also offered to buy T-Mobile for $15 billion in cash, but T-Mobile reportedly turned down the offer to try to get a much larger sum from the company.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.