US: T-Mobile’s biggest shareholder not keen on Dish merger

Even though Deutsche Telekom owns 66% of T-Mobile’s shares, the carrier does not have control of the latter’s Board. But that hasn’t prevented Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges from discussing his plans for the fourth largest carrier in the US. Höttges has said that more value would be created by a T-Mobile-Sprint combination than by the merger of T-Mobile with Dish Network.

According to a source who spoke with the New York Post, Höttges has an end game in mind for T-Mobile and that calls for the carrier to be sold to cable giant Comcast. The Deutsche Telekom chief is concerned that a deal with satellite content provider Dish would end up precluding T-Mobile from being bought by Comcast.

According to the Post, Höttges feels that a deal with Sprint could pump up T-Mobile’s size, especially after the FCC auctions off valuable low-frequency spectrum in 2016. The Deutsche Telekom executive is said to believe that increasing the size of T-Mobile would make it a more attractive merger candidate for Comcast.

Full content: New York Post

Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.