Merger activity decreased last week with two new deals announced and three deals closing.
February 11, 2020 was a significant day for arbitrageurs as a deal that was widely expected to not succeed managed to see one of its key hurdles removed. After months of struggle with antitrust issues, T-Mobile (TMUS) finally received approval from a federal judge for its acquisition of Sprint (S); giving the company a stronger foothold as it plans to take on rivals Verizon and AT&T in the race for developing next-generation wireless 5G technology. The spread as you can see from our new “Weekly Spread Changes” section below, dropped from 77.74% to 13.87%.
According to Reuters, “T-Mobile’s German parent, Deutsche Telekom AG, plans to ask Sprint’s majority owner, Japan’s SoftBank Group, to agree to a lower price, arguing that Sprint’s fortunes have deteriorated following their agreement two years ago”. The deal is expected to close in the coming few weeks. I wrote the following in a premium post the day after the lawsuit was defeated,
Considering this is an all stock deal, T-Mobile already received a boost through the nearly 12% appreciation in its stock price today, which saw the stock touch an all time high. I would be very surprised if the companies tried to negotiate on price after such a long battle. Even if T-Mobile were to attempt a renegotiation, they would not just find SoftBank on the other side of the table but also Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, which has built a more than $2.5 billion stake in SoftBank Group.
The nearly 14% spread on the deal reflects both the potential renegotiation as well as a vote from the California Public Utility Commission. We have seen companies offer specific concessions to state regulators in the past to get their approval.