While T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere has declared himself to be “sick and tired” of takeover talk, that decision is ultimately not up to him. His stern teutonic parents at Deutsche Telekom, which owns 64% of T-Mobile USA, are more than happy to talk to willing, well-heeled suitors for their sassy American subsidiary.
Unlike Sprint, whose parents at SoftBank already appear to be renting a reception space and hiring a caterer for the T-Mobile wedding that didn’t happen in 2014, Deutsche Telekom is willing to open up its mergers and acquisitions Tinder app to see who’s available.
“Purely theoretically, we can see several advantages to consolidation and convergence,” Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Tim Hoettges said Hoettges said on a call to discuss quarterly earning, reports Reuters.
We recently likened T-Mobile to Duckie from Pretty In Pink and Sprint to Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Extending that analogy to potentially lethal lengths, that would make SoftBank Cameron’s rich dad who cares more about his car than his son, and DT would be Duckie’s absentee parents that allow him to wear bolo ties and would probably just be really glad to see him married off to someone wealthy.
But maybe Duckie would also do well with someone else — and heck, Hoettges says T-Mobile can afford to be picky this time around: After all, it was largely responsible for Deutsche Telekom’s better than expected 7.5% increase in core profit, notes Reuters.
T-Mobile reported a 2.7% rise in post-paid customers to 35.3 million last month, Reuters points out, while competitors like Verizon and AT&T lost subscribers: Verizon shed 307,000 retail post-paid customers or anyone who pays a bill every month last quarter, while AT&T waved good-bye to 191,000 post-paid subscribers.
To that end, it’s likely that whoever buys T-Mobile will have to pay more than Sprint offered back in 2014.
“The strong position we have established for ourselves gives us the time and space to evaluate all options together with colleagues in the U.S.,” Hoettges said.
[h/t DSLReports.com]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist