Clearwire’s Share Offering Grows Again

WiMAX and now LTE upstart clwr said this morning that its underwriters have exercised their option to purchase those additional 26.25M shares as part of the company’s public offering. That means another $52.5M in cash for the company’s LTE buildout, making the total cash infusion just over $400M plus Sprint’s matching purchases of Class B stock.  Stronger than expected interest in purchasing Clearwire’s stock surely comes from the underlying value of its spectrum holdings.

Clearwire’s success in raising this money surely gives the company enough to start moving on its LTE buildout after the Christmas holidays, and means we can spend a few more quarters during 2012 marvelling at how well the company spends money. It will also help Sprint’s buildout speed, with two parallel efforts – one with most of the necessary infrastructure already in place in the largest metro areas.

And as they do that work, it looks less and less likely that they will be facing a combined AT&T-mo threat, especially given the DOJ’s latest legal volley. If that happens sooner than later, I still think that T-Mobile’s best option may be to throw its support to Clearwire’s alternative. That is, unless AT&T comes up with a viable Plan B that prevents just such a thing from happening.

Clearwire’s newly issued stock is expected to be issued tomorrow.

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Categories: Financials · Wireless