“The Sprint project is top priority,” the weekly news magazine said, while specifying that there is “for the moment” no formal offer for shares or a takeover attempt and no active negotiations.
Number three in the US mobile market, Sprint, if allied to Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA affiliate, could rival America's number one provider, AT&T Wireless.
Sprint is seen as a “soft target” for Europeans because of a weak dollar against the euro and a fall in share value, Der Spiegel said, ahead of publication of the weekly magazine on Monday.
The company has posted steep 2007 losses with 30 billion dollars in exceptional costs relating to its acquisition of Nextel. Dividend payments were suspended indefinitely at the end of February.
Sprint also announced in mid-January that it was cutting 4,000 jobs and closing 125 company-owned retail stores in anticipation of “downward pressure” on its profits in the coming year.
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