When T-Mobile and Sprint first announced their merger agreement, the two companies said that they expected the deal to close in the first half of 2019. Now they feel that the merger will be complete sooner rather than later.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference in Barcelona, T-Mobile CFO Braxton Carter suggested that the T-Mobile-Sprint merger could close as soon as the first quarter of 2019. “The only remaining thing that is happening is depositions with the DoJ, which have started and will be completed in a few weeks,” Carter explained.

The CFO then admitted that the deal may still have to wait until the second quarter of 2019 to be completed, but that there’s still a chance we could see it happen in the first few months of the year. “At this point, it’s more pointing to the second quarter as more probable (but) it could still be first quarter,” he said.

Finally, Carter talked up the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger and the benefits that the two companies feel it would bring, saying, “The combined assets of Sprint and T-Mobile can create 8 times the 5G capacity that either of us could do on a standalone basis and 15 times the speed.”

The FCC recently announced that it will restart the informal 180-day shot clock on its review of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger after receiving an econometric study from the two companies that the FCC described as a “substantial body of new material on economic issues central to the review of the proposed transaction”. The FCC is now seeking comments on the new study until December 4, at which point it’ll resume its informal 180-day clock.

Based on what we know so far, what do you think the odds are that the T-Mobile-Sprint merger is approved by regulators and is completed?

Source: Reuters