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When regulatory bodies threaten to block a deal between 2 companies to ensure competition stays ripe in an industry, those companies tend to axe all ideas of such a thing and go on about their merry ways. We thought the same might be true for SoftBank’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile (to be merged under Sprint’s arm) a couple of years ago, but that aspiration might have been more dormant than dead.
According to Bloomberg, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is still thinking of ways they can bring T-Mobile and Sprint together. SoftBank — who owns 80% stake in Sprint — thinks there’s merit to the deal that the FCC and Justice Department might eventually see their way.
For their part, they always have the card that their underling Sprint could use a great deal of help to keep up with the growing competition in the US wireless market. At the original time of the proposition, T-Mobile was nearly in the same boat and a merger between two faltering companies could be just the thing to help bring more balance to the wireless industry, but the company was already on a path to becoming the fastest growing wireless carrier, and that performance hasn’t waned in recent years.
Despite T-Mobile’s fortunes as of late, SoftBank still thinks they can get a deal passed (so long as T-Mobile is still willing to sell), and it may only be a matter of choosing the right moment under the right circumstances (hint: the changing of administrations in America after the presidential elections) to make sure that happens.
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