Update 2/11/20: A U.S. District court judge has now approved this merger. Deal is expected to close as early as April 1st, 2020. A federal judge still needs to sign off on the deal, as does California’s utility board.
Original post: T-Mobile & Sprint have finally announced a formal plan to merge. The deal combines Sprint (valued at $26 billion) and T-Mobile (valued at $55 billion). If the deal is completed they will trade under the name T-Mobile and T-Mobile president and CEO John Legere is expected to run the company. There will be significant anti-trust scrutiny as the combined company will be the second largest wireless provider (looks like they will still be #3) with 127.5 million cell phone customers. In 2011 the government prevented an AT&T and T-Mobile deal due to anti-trust concerns.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere stated they would be investing $40 billion on the new network in the first three years after the deal closes, with a focus on building out the 5G network. If successful the deal is expected to be completed by late 2019. Readers of this site might care about this purposed merger for two main reasons: you might be a customer of sprint due to the free unlimited plan for one year, you might be a T-Mobile customer that takes advantage of T-Mobile Tuesdays.
