T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Is In Danger of Being Rejected By DOJ (arstechnica.com) 61
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: T-Mobile U.S. and Sprint are facing potential rejection of their proposed merger at the U.S. Department of Justice. DOJ staffers "have told T-Mobile US and Sprint that their planned merger is unlikely to be approved as currently structured," The Wall Street Journal reported today, citing people familiar with the matter. "In a meeting earlier this month, Justice Department staff members laid out their concerns with the all-stock deal and questioned the companies' arguments that the combination would produce important efficiencies for the merged firm," the Journal wrote. DOJ staffers' recommendations aren't the final word at the agency. The department's antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, would decide whether to challenge or allow the merger.
The Justice Department's antitrust division is reviewing the merger and could file a lawsuit in federal court in an attempt to block the deal. Success isn't guaranteed, a fact the DOJ was reminded of when a U.S. District Court judge allowed AT&T to buy Time Warner despite DOJ opposition. The DOJ could also approve the merger with conditions, but that would require agreement with T-Mobile and Sprint on what those conditions would be. "T-Mobile and Sprint could offer concessions, such as assets sales, to address the government's concerns," the Journal wrote. Sprint shares "are trading at a roughly 20 percent discount to the price implied by the all-stock deal, signaling Wall Street doubts about the combination's chances," the report also said. T-Mobile CEO John Legere denied the report in a tweet, saying that "[t]he premise of this story... is simply untrue. Out of respect for the process, we have no further comment." Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure also claimed that the "article is not accurate," adding that Sprint "continue[s] to have discussions with regulators about our proposed merger."
The Justice Department's antitrust division is reviewing the merger and could file a lawsuit in federal court in an attempt to block the deal. Success isn't guaranteed, a fact the DOJ was reminded of when a U.S. District Court judge allowed AT&T to buy Time Warner despite DOJ opposition. The DOJ could also approve the merger with conditions, but that would require agreement with T-Mobile and Sprint on what those conditions would be. "T-Mobile and Sprint could offer concessions, such as assets sales, to address the government's concerns," the Journal wrote. Sprint shares "are trading at a roughly 20 percent discount to the price implied by the all-stock deal, signaling Wall Street doubts about the combination's chances," the report also said. T-Mobile CEO John Legere denied the report in a tweet, saying that "[t]he premise of this story... is simply untrue. Out of respect for the process, we have no further comment." Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure also claimed that the "article is not accurate," adding that Sprint "continue[s] to have discussions with regulators about our proposed merger."
Equal consideration under the law? (Score:2)
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Preventing a monopoly is a separate and faster process than slowing one or breaking one up. Monopolies are technically legal if not abused. They would have to be shown to be abusing their monopoly position to get broken up.
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Combined, [statista.com] Sprint and T-Mobile will still only be the third largest carrier in the US behind Verizon and AT&T, hardly monopoly territory.
It seems more likely they haven't greased the right wheels in Washington.
That's not the point (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just that we're reducing competition, it's that we have a recent example in our mind's of why we need competition.
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Sprint actually posted a profit for the last fiscal year, though I'm not sure how much that had to do with accounting tricks. They had a profitable mobile division before the Nextel purchase, but they never were able to take full advantage of the push-to-talk architecture that Nextel brought (and that was the entire reason for the $35 billion purchase). Then they made the extraordinarily bad decision to go with WiMax instead of LTE, blowing billions in the rollout and making them less desirable to customers
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For general consumers, sure. But there were a lot of commercial applications where walkie-talkies didn't quite work. It also reduced the number of devices carried by construction workers, security guards, first responders, and a host of others.
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I'm not sure what DOJ's problem is, but I hope that the two companies are willing to address it. As you say, Sprint is effectively dead at this point (I say this as a 17-year customer of Sprint and Nextel), and will declare bankruptcy. They recently announced the sale of their HQ campus in Overland Park, KS, with a deal to lease it back. That's never a good sign. It's unclear how much more money Masayoshi Son is willing to pour into it, but it has to stop at some point. Then the remaining three companies will scramble to buy up parts of it at pennies on the dollar, and I doubt it will be as clean or have as even a result as the current merger could.
There's another possibility: A tech company that would benefit from owning a carrier (Apple, LG, Samsung, etc.) could buy them. Apple was reported to have been considering starting an MVNO. If Apple really wanted to get into services and reduce their ties to hardware, I can't think of a better way to make money off the Android ecosystem than to own one of the carriers that provides service to Google Fi (which currently roams on Sprint, T-Mobile, and U.S. Cellular).
And the only reason Sprint is losing mone
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I don't think the benefits are there. There's no, for lack of a better word, synergy, and huge antitrust issues. Apple offers some free data for iPads and a discount upgrade, but using it on other networks requires paying higher rates. Or maybe the network only works (or only fully works) with Samsung or Apple devices. There's already a lot of grumbling on both sides of the aisle in Congress over companies spilling into other silos. It's not enough to get the law changed yet, but it's enough that a company
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Why this one? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm all well and good with the DOJ exercising its functions in general, but maybe they should have started exercising them a little earlier?
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Sprint's not bad. Their coverage isn't as good, but considering they charge barely more than half what the two major carriers charge they have done better with their infrastructure money dollar-for-dollar. The merger with Sprint would at least give them both a better position - neither have the vestiges of old Bell that the other major players have and so they're both less likely to be abusive.
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No, instead Sprint's legacy is being the spawn of a railroad company, and railroad companies never did anything bad or abusive in the past.
FYI, "Sprint" used to be an acronym: Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications
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Re:Why this one? (Score:5, Informative)
The DOJ actually blocked the AT&T/Warner merger but were overruled by the courts.
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As it turns out "the President doesn't like you" isn't good enough legal reason to block the merger of two companies.
Re:Why this one? (Score:4, Interesting)
This argument is a bit weakened since AT&T owns DirecTV. But IMHO that merger was the one which should never have been allowed since (1) DirecTV competed with every cable company, and (2) the fact that DirecTV and Dish competed with every cable company was the entire basis of the previous ruling that local cable monopolies were OK. The cable companies successfully argued that they weren't really monopolies because satellite TV competed with them. By that reasoning, the moment AT&T bought DirecTV (which had bought a chunk of Dish), every cable monopoly contract in the country should have been invalidated and all those local governments forced to allow at least two cable companies to compete.
I'm for this merger BTW (disclaimer: I'm on Sprint). I don't see four cellular carriers as realistic - Sprint has been on life support for close to a decade. I only see two realistic outcomes here.
You do NOT want the second one. Most of the discount MVNOs [wikipedia.org] are using Sprint's network (part of the reason why Sprint regularly finishes last in speed tests - Sprint went for quantity over quality). If Sprint goes bankrupt, all those MVNO network contracts will be invalidated. Prices on all those MVNOs will go up as they have to negotiate new contracts.with the remaining three carriers. With a merger, the new Sprint/T-Mobile will still be legally bound to honor those old MVNO contracts.
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Technically the DOJ can't block or allow anything they can only go to court to try and stop it.
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Not enough bribes yet (Score:2)
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The DoJ TRIED to stop the ATT/TW merger and lost in court.
The DoJ had Fox make concessions with divesting 22 regional sport channels since tESPN is probably the singles biggest force in sports broadcasting(property of Disney).
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Yeah, because having the #4 mobile operator in the US fall apart from bankruptcy and have the top 3 buy their assets and leave their customers in the cold is a way better outcome than having #3 and #4 merge, creating.... the #3 largest mobile operator in the US.
This deal would close the gap between the top two and #3, ensuring better competition and keeping the market working the way it's supposed to. Does anyone know what the DoJ's specific complaints are here? As I understand it, their ability to block
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Spoken like a true Marxist. Enjoy the gulag.
I hope not (Score:2)
It can only get better, hardly worse than now.
They must not have followed proper procedures (Score:2, Informative)
Hotel rooms (Score:1)
Sprint and T-Mobile just haven't booked enough rooms in Trump hotels.
Owners (Score:4, Interesting)
Book more rooms (Score:3)
The inside guy is Verizon (Score:2)