USA's Sprint Expects More Industry Mergers

Published on: 20th Sep 2012

The CE­O of USA based Sprint has suggested that the company will probably take part in future consolidation in the industry, which sent the company's share price up by over 7 percent.

Dan Hesse was speaking at a Goldman Sachs Group investment conference and said that mergers between the smaller networks would enable them to compete against AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

There has been persistent talk about further mergers between the mid-sized players over the past couple of years, and a recent analyst note suggested that Sprint could buy MetroPCS Communications.

However, the company is still absorbing the effects of its merger with Nextel and is in the middle of a major network overhaul. Hesse has reassured investors that the company wont enter into a deal that would be a distraction during the ongoing network transformation.

However, he said that the company could look at either a smaller acquisition to gain quick cost savings, or a more strategic merger with another medium sized network to directly challenge the larger carriers.

Any larger deal would need to ensure that the network transformation the company is undertaking would not be affected until the middle of next year though, he added.

He also confirmed that they could talk to the bankrupt LightSquared if it is able to secure permission to launch its stalled LTE network and come out of bankruptcy.

 

Tags: [dan hesse]  [sprint]  [USA]