Wow, who would have thunk it. A Bloomberg report today says that the US Department of Justice is suing to stop the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. That pretty much takes the wind out of AT&T’s offer this morning to repatriate 5000 call center jobs if the deal were approved. Not much information yet beyond the fact that the US is opposing the deal, but AT&T’s stock is nosediving while Sprint’s is soaring.
Will AT&T back off now or does it get really messy? There’s a big breakup fee of course, but given the way positions harden during election years it seems unlikely the DOJ is going to change its mind easily. And if they do back off, what now for T-Mobile? Do they have a route other than a more problematic merger with Sprint later on? Hmmmm…
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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Wireless
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Let’s watch to see if AT&T makes a large contribution to the party in power and if the suit gets dropped or modified in some way (he says cynically).
Is there any data accumulated that shows market share if the merger goes forward? Be interesting to see what the justification for the suit is based on.
Read the complaint. It is very well drafted