DISH wants to buy Sprint for $25.5 billion

DISH Network, the satellite pay-tv company has decided it wants to buy Sprint Corp and has offered $25.5 billion for the beleaguered third placed wireless carrier. They are offering $7 a share, or about $4.76 a share in cash and about $2.24 in DISH stock. That’s 13 percent or about $5.4 billion higher than the $20.1 billion offered by Softbank of Japan.

The cash component of DISH’s proposal is an 18% premium over the $4.03 per share implied by the SoftBank proposal while the equity portion represents approximately 32% ownership in the combined DISH/Sprint versus SoftBank’s proposal of a 30% interest in just Sprint, DISH claimed in a press release. DISH CEO and chairman Charlie Ergen said:

“The DISH proposal clearly presents Sprint shareholders with a superior alternative to the pending SoftBank proposal. Sprint shareholders will benefit from a higher price with more cash while also creating the opportunity to participate more meaningfully in a combined DISH/Sprint with a significantly-enhanced strategic position and substantial synergies that are not attainable through the pending SoftBank proposal.”

DISH is trying for a complete makeover from its slow growing Pay-TV business and has been acquiring spectrum to build a nationwide LTE network, though from the looks of it, it will take it a long time to actually roll out the network. It recently asked FCC for a four year extension to build out its network.

PS: A full analysis of the news to follow. In the interim here is the DISH website where they outline the entire proposal and have explained their bid in detail.