A few months ago, we learned that T-Mobile had decided to buy the wireless business of long-time Sprint affiliate Shentel, but the two parties couldn’t agree on a price. Now it looks like they’ve finally come to an agreement.

Shentel has come to an agreement with T-Mobile on how to value its wireless business so that T-Mo can acquire it. The appraisers that’ll set the value of Shentel will use July 1, 2020 as their valuation date and they’ll assume that the T-Mobile-Sprint merger did not occur, meaning Shentel would have continued access to Sprint’s brands and spectrum and the impacts of the merger are disregarded.

It’s expected that the appraisers will complete their valuation of Shentel’s wireless business on or around January 20, 2021. T-Mobile’s acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.

Shentel operates its wireless business in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and, as of earlier this year, served 1.1 million customers. Shentel has been a Sprint affiliate since 1995, and as part of that agreement any company that acquired Sprint could also acquire Shentel for 90% of its “entire business value”.

The issue with T-Mobile is that the two companies couldn’t come to an agreement on the appraisal of Shentel’s assets. The deal could have gone into arbitration if T-Mo and Shentel couldn’t reach an agreement, but the two companies finally found terms that were agreeable to them both on November 3.

Thanks Ben!

Source: Shentel (GlobeNewswire)