Sprint Nextel wants to buy the minority stake in Clearwire...
Sprint Nextel wants to buy the minority stake in Clearwire it doesn’t own, according to regulatory filings. Sprint, which already owns 51.7 percent of Clearwire, offered $2.1 billion for the remainder (http://xrl.us/bn6bq8). Clearwire said a special committee of its board…
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is in discussions with Sprint on a bid of $2.90 per share. “Clearwire ... under the direction of the Special Committee, continues to be in discussions with Sprint to explore a transaction,” Clearwire said, saying there’s no guarantee of a deal. Clearwire owns lots of spectrum, but at 2.5 GHz “it takes a very large number of cell sites to provide meaningful coverage (roughly twice as many, for example, as would a network built in T-Mobile/MetroPCS’s 1.7/2.1 GHz AWS band),” said Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett. “In-building coverage is particularly poor. In many ways, then, Sprint’s spending on Clearwire only begins with the purchase of the remainder of its equity.” The price could go higher, said New Street Research. “We regard this as a compelling price for Sprint (we had assumed $4 in our prior analysis); however, we would be surprised if large Clearwire holders are willing to sell at this price,” the firm said. “As such, we regard $2.90 as the best case scenario for Sprint and the worst case scenario for Clearwire -- the price could move up from here.” Clearwire closed at $3.16 a share Thursday, up 14.9 percent on the day.