Dish Network is Making a $25.5 Billion Bid for Sprint

Dish Network, the number two satellite television provider in the U.S., has launched a $25.5 billion bid for the number 3 U.S. wireless network Sprint today, in an attempt to snatch the provider right out from under the nose of Japanese communications firm Softbank.

AppleInsider:

News of Dish’s merger proposal broke on Monday, with The Wall Street Journal reporting on Dish’s combined cash and stock offer. Under the deal, Dish would offer $7 per share of Sprint stock, of which $4.76 would be cash and $2.24 would be Dish stock.

Dish says that its bid represents a 12% premium over Sprint’s closing price on Friday, and a 13% bump over the rival offer from Softbank.

Softbank made a $20 billion bid for the controlling share in Sprint back in October. Softbank would hold 70% of the shares in Sprint, but shareholders have not as yet approved the deal.

Dish shareholders would be in control of the combined Dish/Sprint company, which would have more than $36 billion in debt, and that’s before taking into account the additional $9 billion loan Dish would have to take on to make the deal go through. There is also the matter of a $600 million “breakup fee” Dish would have to pay to Softbank.

Sprint brought in $35.5 billion in revenue on 2012, more than double Dish’s $14.3 billion for the same period.

Dish has been looking to move into being a wider wireless provider for awhile, buying up wireless spectrum, and making an informal bid earlier this year to buy out Sprint-owned Clearwire. That deal fell through due to reported difficulties stemming from multiple partners with a piece of the company.

Neither Softbank nor Sprint has commented on the offer as of the time of this article. Sprint shares were up 15.43%  before the market opened on Monday.

Chris Hauk

Chris is a Senior Editor at Mactrast. He lives somewhere in the deep Southern part of America, and yes, he has to pump in both sunshine and the Internet.