Sprint Nextel will buy affiliate, licenses for $100M

[TNDan21]

Sprint Nextel will buy affiliate, licenses for $100M
Friday December 16, 10:08 am ET


Sprint Nextel Corp. will buy wireless affiliate Enterprise Communications Partnership for about $98 million, including debt assumption.

In a written release Friday, Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S - News) said it also will pay about $2 million for C Block wireless spectrum licenses from an affiliate of Enterprise Communications, which is based in Columbus, Ga.

The transaction, which Sprint Nextel said it expects to close in the first quarter, will add more than 52,000 customers to its base of direct subscribers and extend its direct service territory to an additional 825,000 people.

Enterprise Communications has about 80 employees and reported revenue of $54.3 million for the year that ended Sept. 30.

Sprint Nextel's financial adviser for the transaction was Citigroup Global Markets Inc., and its principal legal adviser was King & Spalding LLP. Enterprise's financial advisor was Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc., and its principal legal adviser was McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.

The transaction is the latest in a string of wireless affiliate purchases Sprint Nextel has announced in the past several months. On Aug. 30, the company said it would buy Gulf Coast Wireless Ltd. Partnership of Baton Rouge, La., for about $287.5 million and IWO Holdings of Albany, N.Y., for about $427 million.

Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. completed their $38.8 billion merger on Aug. 12 and became Sprint Nextel Corp. The combined company is based in Reston, Va., with operational headquarters in Overland Park.

Sprint Corp. said July 11 that it would buy wireless affiliate US Unwired Inc. for $1.3 billion, ending the affiliate's suit against Sprint alleging that the Sprint-Nextel merger violated Sprint's affiliate agreement with US Unwired. Sprint Nextel's purchase of Gulf Coast Wireless also ended a similar suit.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/051216/1204481.html?.v=1

[agentHibby]

Just to comment on this about 2 months ago, VZW was going to get the 15 MHz airwaves from Enterprise. When I found out they were an affiliate with Sprint, I thought this was going to be like the Qwest deal. Sprint would get the customers and VZW the airwaves. By mid November the deal was off the table for VZW. Throughout most of enterprise’s licensed markets Sprint only have 10 MHz and I am sure they would want more than 10 so that is why the VZW deal with Enterprise got killed.

[larry]

Not bad. Now let's all wait for the big announcement of the purchase of Ubiquitel.

[bobolito]

Geez! I wonder how much debt can Sprint/Nextel take on. Adding up all their purchases of affiliates and Nextel, they should be well into the $40 billions. They should be careful not to get in trouble paying their obligations.

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by bobolito

Geez! I wonder how much debt can Sprint/Nextel take on. Adding up all their purchases of affiliates and Nextel, they should be well into the $40 billions. They should be careful not to get in trouble paying their obligations.

It makes the AWE merger a bargin in comparison, especially if they keep buying more affiliates. I remember everyone saying Cingular paid too much for AWE & now people are starting to say the same thing about the Sprint/Nextel merger.

[chuikov]

And the Sprint buy of Nextel is not complete. They still need to buy Nextel Partners.

When done, and if they keep and develop iDen, they could overthrow the king.