Round and round the merger talk goes, where she’ll stop nobody knows as a new report out of Bloomberg said Dish Networks approached Deutsche Telekom about possible T-Mobile USA merger. According to the report, Dish made their proposal sometime before April 10th and before Deutsche Telekom sweetened its offer for MetroPCS. According to “people familiar with the matter,” DT might consider Dish’s proposal after the MetroPCS transaction closes. Early analyst reports argue that a Dish acquisition of T-Mobile would likely be well received by regulators as any deal wouldn’t cut a major nationwide competitor.
The Bloomberg report does mention that DT would only consider the offer after “verifying that a separate deal with Sprint isn’t feasible.” As it stands, any deal between Sprint and T-Mobile would likely be attacked by regulators afraid of losing one of the top four carriers and the impact such a move would have on competition. Not to mention Sprint is already in the beginning stages of being purchased by Japanese giant Softbank.
Dish Network has recently announced it has a $10 billion cash stockpile, the largest such cash hoard in the cable industry. Such an amount makes a T-Mobile deal within reach, though that doesn’t mean it’s likely to happen. With the sweetened deal for MetroPCS, and the resulting blessing from the two loudest opponents of the earlier offer, T-Mobile’s future status remains once again, part of merger talks.