Not long after reports said SoftBank has proposed for Charter to merge with Sprint, Charter Communications has now come out saying it's not interested.
Masayoshi Son, Sprint's chairman, proposed a cash and stock merger with Charter, according to several reports. The goal is to create a brand-new company, publicly traded, that would put together Sprint and Charter, which SoftBank will control.
The new company would then attempt to acquire T-Mobile, according to Bloomberg. Such a partnership would help both companies offer a full suite of telecommunication services to customers, therefore competing with similar packages AT&T and Verizon also sell to their customers.
But newer reports say Charter isn't actually interested in the proposed merger.
We're Not Interested In Acquiring Sprint: Charter
"We understand why a deal is attractive for Softbank, but Charter has no interest in acquiring Sprint," according to a Charter spokesperson.
Other reports say Charter's management team took it to the board, considered it for a short while, and concluded that it was a bad idea, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Since late May, both Charter and Comcast have entered discussions with Sprint over potential deals, which include one where the cable companies can resell wireless service under their own brands. The talks, reports say, ended last week. Charter has ended its discussions with Sprint with regard to plans on reselling its wireless service.
Charter plans to join Comcast to offer customers wireless service via an agreement with Verizon, which, in wireless network industry talk, is called a mobile virtual network operator. Furthermore, the spokesperson said Charter has a good mobile virtual network operator relationship with Verizon and plans to roll out wireless services to cable consumers by next year.
SoftBank Will Attempt A Direct Offer
Now with SoftBank's proposal rejected, reports also now say that Son plans to bid for Charter directly. Son plans to make the offer this week, according to a source privy to the matter. The offer could once again rekindle discussions that seemed to be dead when Charter rejected a proposal which will merge it with Sprint.
All these discussions are the effect of cable companies and wireless networks trying to cozy up to each other as more consumers prefer watching content and accessing the internet on mobile devices. A merge would have likely resulted in both companies integrating their services to offer its customers a full package of wireless services.
