A month after reports emerged that Sprint was exploring a wireless partnership with Charter Communications, a new report suggests the SoftBank-owned wireless company wants even more: a merger.
The deal would create a media and communications giant and “upend” an industry already in flux. Charter and Comcast were already in exclusive talks with Sprint over possible deals, but the exclusivity window ended this week. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son “continues to pursue a much larger deal with Charter” that “calls for the creation of a new publicly traded entity that would combine Sprint and Charter and be controlled by Japan’s SoftBank Group.”
How big a company would it be? Charter, which includes the former Time Warner Cable, is currently worth almost $100 billion. Sprint is worth about $33 billion (with substantial debt).
What’s more, such a deal “wouldn’t preclude a subsequent tie-up between the new group and T-Mobile,” the Journal notes.