Sprinting ahead

30 April 2013 By Robert Cyran Follow @rob_cyran

Dish’s $25.5 bln bid may look better on paper, but it actually falls short of SoftBank’s $20.1 bln proposal. The Dish pitch would pump up Sprint debt to levels so high that they could weaken the combined company – and leave investors holding a pay TV business poised for decline.

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SoftBank on April 30 said it would not raise its $20.1 billion bid for control of Sprint Nextel in response to a $25.5 billion offer from rival Dish Network. Masayoshi Son, the president and chief executive of the Japanese internet firm, dismissed the Dish proposal as “incomplete and illusory.”
Dish says its $7 per share stock and cash offer for the U.S. telecom clocks in at a 12.5 percent premium over SoftBank’s bid. Son claims his company’s proposal is actually worth $7.65 a share, while Dish’s should be valued at $6.31 because it will take longer to complete, involve costlier debt and fall short in synergies created.

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