Dish Network offering to buy Sprint in $25.5B deal
Source: AP-Excite
By PETER SVENSSON
NEW YORK (AP) - Dish Network Corp. is trying to snag U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) away from its Japanese suitor in recognition of the way satellite dishes are losing their relevance in the age of cellphones that play YouTube videos.
Dish offered $25.5 billion in cash and stock on Monday for Sprint, which Dish says beats the offer from Japan's Softbank Corp. Softbank is offering $20 billion in cash, and shareholders get to keep 30 percent of Sprint. Dish is offering $17.3 billion in cash, and Sprint shareholders get 32 percent of the combined Dish-Sprint.
Sprint Nextel Corp.'s stock jumped on the news, as investors started looking forward to a bidding war between Dish and Softbank. Sprint had accepted the Softbank offer and was expecting to close on it this summer. Sprint, the country's third-largest cellphone carrier, said it would evaluate Dish's offer.
Charlie Ergen, Dish's executive chairman, has been looking for a way into the wireless world for years. Dish has been buying space on the airwaves for cellphone service or wireless broadband. The Englewood, Colo., company has tried to partner with cellphone companies to put its spectrum rights to use, but has been repeatedly rebuffed.
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Three Dish Network satellite dishes are shown at an apartment complex in Palo Alto, Calif., in this Feb. 23, 2011 file photo. Dish Network is offering to buy Sprint Nextel Corp. in a cash-and-stock deal it values at $25.5 billion, saying its bid is superior to that of Japanese phone company SoftBank. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
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