T-Mobile said to have blown off Iliad's $15B bid
The US wireless carrier reportedly rejects Iliad's request for financial information because its proposal for a controlling stake in the company is too low.
T-Mobile confirmed last week that it received a proposal from French telecommunications provider Iliad for a controlling stake in the company. But now, the deal is said to be dead.
The US wireless carrier reportedly rejected Iliad's request to access its confidential financial information, which is necessary to make a formal offer, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Journal reported the reason for the rejection is supposedly because Iliad's proposed $15 billion bid was too low.
Last week, Iliad announced that it was interested in T-Mobile and was ready to throw down $15 billion in cash for a 56.6 percent stake in the company. The French telecom company said it would finance the deal through a combination of debt and equity, and that it has the support of "leading international banks" for the debt.
While T-Mobile is a publicly traded company, it is still majority owned by Deutsche Telekom, which has been eager to offload the asset to focus on its core business in Europe.
For the past few months, it's been reported that Sprint and its parent Japanese carrier SoftBank have also been courting T-Mobile. It's believed that Sprint has made an offer of $30 billion. However, US regulators have expressed their reservations about the deal because it would mean even less competition in the US wireless carrier market.
When contacted by CNET, a T-Mobile spokesperson said the company is not commenting further than what was written in its July 31 Securities and Exchange Commission filing, which only said T-Mobile "confirms that it has received a proposal from Iliad." Iliad also declined to comment.
T-Mobile appears to be a hot commodity as of late. It's the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the US by subscribers, but has surged in recent months with renewed customer growth. The company exceeded Wall Street's second-quarter expectations last week when it reported that its customer base surpassed the 50 million mark and its profit was $391, or 48 cents a share. T-Mobile's revenue also rose 15.3 percent to $7.19 billion.