- Career staff at the Justice Dept. charged with investigating the impact of a merger between Sprint (S +0.8%) and T-Mobile (TMUS -0.1%) are likely to recommend against it, sources tell Reuters.
- Staffers are likely to push for allowing T-Mobile to keep doing what it's doing: using aggressive promotion to soak up customers from Verizon (VZ -0.6%) and AT&T (T -0.8%), as a stand-alone company.
- One consideration they'll likely weigh heavily is that a combined Sprint/T-Mobile would have more than half the prepaid market, a factor that could drive up prices for more limited-income consumers that favor prepaid plans.
- While a fraction of deals end up blocked, T-Mobile and Sprint were headed off from a 2014 merger by regulatory opposition, and observers think there is a good chance that any deal announced this month would head for the same fate.
- On the other hand, the FCC recently declared the market "competitive", and government stats show wireless phone prices have fallen an impressive 13.2% from August 2016-August 2017.
- Previously: Bearish on merger talk, Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) trims Sprint, T-Mobile targets (Oct. 10 2017)
- Previously: Son approach may mean positives in Sprint/T-Mobile regardless of deal valuation (Oct. 07 2017)
- Previously: Bloomberg: Sprint, T-Mobile on final approach for deal this month (Oct. 06 2017)
- Now read: How Verizon Is Supporting The Dividend
Original article