It seemed like T-Mobile is one of the highly pursued company nowadays given the fact that more than one company had planned a takeover. Carter reiterated that the company is not that easy to accept any takeover deals and that Iliad's $15 billion offer didn't look tempting at all.
"I think rarely people come with their best bid to start," said Carter.
It should be remembered that only a few weeks ago, Sprint had backed out in its acquisition attempt on the fourth largest carrier of the nation, T-Mobile USA. Prior to that, Iliad, a French Telecom provider, had placed a bid for around $15 billion to buy the U.S. carrier. Iliad's offer is definitely so much different from Softbank's offer of $40 billion.
The $15 billion bid of Iliad would allow it to gain a 57 percent share that will be worth $33 per share. Sprint, on the other hand, would have a $40 per share.
The comparison goes on and on. Iliad is a foreign-based carrier with a small infrastructure in the U.S. For it to flourish in the rural areas, which T-Mobile lags in itself, the French carrier would have to deal with a huge spending. In the case of Sprint, it already has an existing national footprint which it can provide to T-Mobile.
Iliad was actually on the hunt for partners to help the company in financing the bid and give it the right funding it needed to make an offer for a bigger stake. The French company is said to be working with Comcast, Dish, and some cable/ISP providers in the U.S. to make the deal a little bit sweeter.
"We believe today that we're undervalued. And we believe that our forward potential is significant," said Carter.
Nevertheless, Iliad could still come up with a new and better offer though it may be difficult to imagine how much it can afford to spend.
Carter said at the conference that the T-Mobile network has been set up to take care of Wi-Fi calling and data, adding that it would a great tool in managing traffic on the cellular network. That being said, Carter believes that entering a partnership deal with a company that already has an extensive Wi-Fi capacity "could be a very powerful value proposition."
Dish Network, the no. 2 satellite provider in the U.S., has expressed before of its interest in T-Mobile but didn't want to interfere when Sprint was in the picture. For the analysts, they seem to agree that Dish Network could just be the best option of the U.S. carrier. After all, the company owns about $26 billion worth of its very own airwaves and can definitely help T-Mobile gain a more valuable spectrum in the FCC auction of 2015.
