Sprint and T-Mobile reportedly near $32 billion merger deal

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Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, is getting close to finalizing a deal to acquire the No. 4 carrier, T-Mobile, for about $40 a share, Bloomberg Businessweek reports, citing "people with knowledge of the matter." That values T-Mobile, the U.S. subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, at about $31 billion.

The deal isn't expected to be announced until July, maybe August. The big hurdle would be convincing antitrust regulators that the merger is good for consumers. "In order to compete against the big two, AT&T and Verizon, scale is essential," Satoru Kikuchi, an analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities, Tokyo, tells Bloomberg. "The mobile-phone industry is an industry that needs business investment, so the larger the better." Oddo & Co. analyst Alexandre Iatrides puts the odds of regulatory approval at 30-40 percent.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.