Telecom Lead Asia: SoftBank on Monday said it remains confident that its merger with Sprint will be completing on July 1, 2013, despite Dish Network’s new offer.
The Japanese telecom giant said it already provided Sprint with $3.1 billion of capital, provides the shareholders of Sprint significantly more value than the highly leveraged approach made by Dish Network on 15 April.
“SoftBank remains committed to completing its transaction on the terms previously disclosed. The company anticipates closing on July 1, 2013 or as soon as possible thereafter, subject to satisfaction of closing conditions, including receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals,” said the company in a statement.
However, SoftBank confirmed that at the request of the Special Committee formed by the Board of Directors of Sprint Nextel, it has provided Sprint with a limited waiver of certain provisions of the merger agreement between the companies.
The waiver will enable Sprint to enter into a non-disclosure agreement with Dish Network to receive confidential information from Dish, and to conduct discussions with Dish solely for the purpose of clarifying and obtaining further information from Dish regarding its preliminary proposal made on April 15, 2013.
However, the waiver does not permit Sprint to provide non-public information to Dish nor does it enable Sprint to enter into negotiations with Dish. Such actions may be taken by Sprint only in accordance with the Sprint-SoftBank merger agreement, Softbank added.
