Stocks in cell-tower companies — which have been in a general decline on the prospect of dealing with one less major wireless-carrier customer — are rising while the carriers involved took a significant drop. Percentage of growth for the day (10/30) shown below:
- American Tower (NYSE:AMT) is up 2.8%;
- SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC) up 2.4%;
- Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) up 2.8%.
- T-Mobile (TMUS) down 5.3%
- Sprint (S) down 9.3%
SoftBank Group Corp., will reportedly call off negotiations to merge its subsidiary, Sprint Corp., with T-Mobile U.S., according to Nikkei Asian Review, a Japanese financial news agency. It said that SoftBank may approach T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom as early as tomorrow, to end the deal.
Inside Towers reported on October 13, that the merger was unlikely, citing a Reuters article that said the Department of Justice would “likely recommend putting a stop to any further plans” due to anti-trust regulations blocking its path.
Jennifer Fritzsche, Senior Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities said, “We had often questioned why Masa Son would give up control if there was no premium reportedly to be paid (which had also been reported). For TMUS–we would not be surprised if it looks to make another move–to gain access to additional spectrum–to help support the strong growth it has continued to see the past few years.”
October 31, 2017
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