SoftBank chief Son in talks with banks to fund T-Mobile acquisition
21 Dec 2013
Japanese software and telecoms company SoftBank Corp's chief executive officer Masayoshi Son has approached banks such as Credit Suisse Group AG, Mizuho Bank Ltd as also Goldman Sachs Group Inc to get financing for Sprint Corp to nbuy the majority of T-Mobile US Inc in 2014 (See: T-Mobile spurts after reports of Sprint considering bid: Report).
Bloomberg quoted people familiar with the matter as saying, Son had also met with Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co, even as it received advice from the Raine Group LLC.
The report noted that the discussions with banks were at an initial stage, and the feedback so far was that the money was available.
The plan would be to take control of T-Mobile with cash payment for the 67-per cent stake held by Deutsche Telekom AG and Sprint with the subsequent integration of Sprint with T-Mobile, the report said.
According to the report, Son met with executives of Credit Suisse Group AG, Mizuho Bank Ltd, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co to get financing of about $20 billion.
The bid could see Sprint, the third-largest US wireless carrier, merge with the fourth largest.
SoftBank owns 80 per cent of Sprint, while T-Mobile is majority owned by Deutsche Telekom AG.
According to a Reuters report on Wednesday which cited sources, Dish Network Corp, which lost out to Japanese telecoms giant SoftBank in its attempt to buy Sprint several months ago, was also considering making a bid for T-Mobile (See: Dish backs off from Sprint Nextel for now, to focus on Clearwire).