Softbank remains unfazed by Dish’s higher competing offer to acquire Sprint — and it still expects its initial deal with Sprint to go through in a few months.
Yesterday Dish announced that it’s offering Sprint $25.5 billion to purchase Sprint, $5 billion higher than Softbank’s offer to purchase a majority interest in the carrier. Undaunted, Softbank shot back last night with a statement:
SoftBank believes that the agreed terms of our transaction with Sprint offer Sprint shareholders superior short and long term benefits to Dish’s highly conditional preliminary proposal. The SoftBank-Sprint transaction is in the advanced stages of receiving the necessary approvals, and we expect to consummate the transaction on July 1, 2013.
I suppose it would have been more surprising if Softbank said anything else. Investors were less assured in the Japanese carrier’s ability to purchase Sprint following Dish’s offer — its stock fell as much as 9.3 percent in Tokyo today, DealBook reports.
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At this point, we’ll just have to wait and see what Sprint decides. With Softbank, it will have an experienced carrier as a majority stakeholder, who will also let Sprint continue to exist as an independent, publicly traded company. Dish’s deal would involve a complete merger and a big bet on the satellite TV company’s vision of offering a variety of services to compete with cable companies.
Photo: Miki Yoshihito/Flickr
