Sprint: Nextel&#39;s Savior
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NEW YORK - Just two months after the announcement that Cingular Wireless will acquire AT&amp;T Wireless, Sprint has announced that it plans to buy Nextel Communications for $35 billion.
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A year ago, just after its first anniversary as a combined company, Sprint Nextel appeared ripe for the picking.
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Bolstered by its fast-growing wireless business, Sprint reported solid third-quarter results Tuesday that beat Wall Street's expectations by 3 cents a share. Sprint also took a &#36;3.5 billion charge to write down network equipment that's been rendered obsolete.
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DAYTONA BEACH -- There&#39;s no need to take down those yellow Nextel banners at Daytona International Speedway any time soon. Even with Nextel planning to merge with Sprint and become Sprint-Nextel, NASCAR&#39;s
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Sprint Corp. is close to an agreement to buy Nextel Communications Inc. for about $35 billion in a mostly stock deal that would combine the No.
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Sprint and Nextel Communications have signed a merger agreement. The combined company, which will adopt the name Sprint Nextel, will serve nearly 40 million wireless customers.
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Sprint (nyse: FON - news - people ) and Nextel Communications (nasdaq: NXTL - news - people ) said this morning that their boards have unanimously approved a &quot;merger of equals.
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New Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse has lots of choices as he&#160;takes over the ailing mobile carrier&#160;and looks for problems to start solving.Sprint, the third-biggest wireless operator in the U.S., is&#160;losing subscribers as it keeps working through the merger of Sprint and Nextel, which occurred in 2005. On Tuesday,&#160;Sprint announced Hesse is taking over immediately for Gary Forsee, who was forced out by the company&#39;s board in October. Hesse, 54, previously led Embarq, the local wireless carrier Sprint spun off as part of the Nextel deal.Sprint needs to both distinguish itself from competitors and get its own house in order, according to mobile industry analysts.&quot;They couldn&#39;t go on without someone who&#39;s willing to set a direction,&quot; said Avi Greengart of Current Analysis. Sprint could try to compete with Verizon Wireless and AT&amp;T Wireless on price, or with more flexible terms of service, or bring out more innovative devices, but it&#39;s failed so far to choose, according to Greengart.&quot;Their brand right now doesn&#39;t stand for anything,&quot; he said.One thing the Sprint name has been associated with recently is disappointing customer service. Reporting on the quarter ended Sept. 30, the company blamed accelerating customer &quot;churn&quot; to other carriers in part on longer help calls and waits for those calls. The introduction of simplified bills, expected to continue until the middle of 2008, boosted the number of those calls, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Sprint also noted new handsets at rival carriers, clearly a reference to AT&amp;T&#39;s Apple iPhone.Meanwhile, thanks to about 700,000 subscribers quitting the aging Nextel network, Sprint&#39;s subscriber base as a whole declined by a net 337,000 in the quarter. The carrier said it had about 54 million subscribers on Sept. 30.What could most set Sprint apart is also its biggest gamble, the WiMax wireless broadband network it plans to build across the U.S. at an estimated cost of US$5 billion. Though the WiMax network is likely to be in place first, set to reach 100 million people by the end of 2008, Sprint&#39;s main rivals plan to have their own high-speed data offerings using a similar technology, LTE (Long-Term Evolution). And WiMax won&#39;t fix Sprint&#39;s long-overdue need to harmonize its cellular operations, currently split between CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and Nextel&#39;s older iDEN technology, Greengart said.If it goes ahead with WiMax -- interim CEO Paul Saleh said this month the business might be spun off -- Sprint will have to convince skeptical investors it&#39;s making the right move, said Yankee Group&#39;s Phil Marshall. It will also need to find a way for WiMax to truly complement the cellular business, Marshall said. So far, Sprint has painted WiMax as a mobile service distinguished from its conventional voice offerings by the promise of an any-application, any-device model. A better plan would be to push WiMax as an alternative to wired broadband that&#39;s bundled with Sprint&#39;s cellular service, Marshall said.However, in the short term, Hesse just needs to get the company to run its existing businesses better, Marshall said. Cleaning up customer service would be one key move, he added. Judging from Hesse&#39;s previous performance -- he once headed AT&amp;T Wireless -- the new CEO is qualified to do this, according to Marshall.&quot;He&#39;s very pragmatic and systematic in his management style,&quot; Marshall said.&#160;
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On 15 December 2004, Sprint and Nextel announced a definitive agreement to merge. The combined companies will operate under the name Sprint Nextel.
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Sprint Corp.&#39;s enterprise operation, including its nationwide fiber-optic network, suddenly is looking like a swan and not a lame duck, as Verizon Wireless assesses the possibility of making a bid for Sprint in the boiling cell-phone merger scene.
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The proposed merger of Sprint and Nextel Communications could face a rocky start as the companies work to run and eventually merge two wireless technologies without breaking the bank or losing customers.
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Sprint Corp. appears to be on the verge of the boldest move of CEO Gary Forsee&#39;s 18-month tenure: A $36 billion merger with rival wireless company Nextel Communications Inc.
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Sprint Nextel's breakup with some customers may not be popular, but it could make financial sense.Images: Sprint's Dear John letter
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NEW YORK  -  When cellphone giants Sprint and Nextel merged in 2005, investors had a lot of hope for the combined company.
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The Sprint/Nextel merger announced earlier this month is only the latest can&#39;t-miss-guaranteed-to-increase-profits combination to hit the airwaves.
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Sprint (FON:NYSE - news - research) and Nextel (NXTL:Nasdaq - news - research) confirmed their $35 billion merger Wednesday, setting ambitious plans for growth along with extensive cost-cutting.
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If Sprint Corp. does hook up with Nextel Communications Inc. -- or, as some observers suggest, Verizon Wireless -- the merger partners will face a multibillion dollar-strategic dilemma.