Clearwire raises an additional $920M in financing

Clearwire said that it raised, through a subsidiary, an additional $920 million in debt financing, giving it another financial lift as it seeks to continue aggressively building out its mobile WiMAX network.

The new debt financing, through a pricing of 12 percent secured notes due in 2015, means that the company has raised a total of around $2.8 billion through debt and equity financing during the past few weeks. In addition to the $920 million, Clearwire confirmed earlier this month it will raise around $1.56 billion in new equity financing from strategic investors, including Sprint Nextel. The company also recently had a debt offering of $1.85 billion in senior notes, which was used to pay off an existing $1.4 billion credit facility.

Earlier this year, the company said it needed between $2 billion and $2.3 billion to carry out its plan of having 120 million POPs covered under its mobile WiMAX network by the end of 2010.

"With this latest tranche of additional funding, we have not only exceeded the amount of capital that we have previously stated we needed to fully fund our business plan, but we have also secured additional capital that will allow us to expand more aggressively by covering more people, and with more capacity than we had previously planned," Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow said in a statement.

Clearwire's stock was up almost 6 percent on the news, to around $6 per share.

In the third quarter, Clearwire posted a loss of $82.42 million, wider than the loss of $72.7 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose 13 percent to $68.8 million in the quarter.

For more:
- see this release [1]
- see this Reuters article [2]

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