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Sprint rejects SK Telecom's $5B investment
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Sprint rejected a $5 billion investment from SK Telecom and PE firm Providence Equity Partners that also included installing Sprint's former chairman Tim Donahue as CEO of the company. Donahue and the PE firm proposed the deal to Sprint in a letter dated November 10, according to the report, but Sprint did not grant the former chairman or the firm a meeting to discuss the proposal before declining.
Donahue was the CEO of Nextel who negotiated the carrier's $35 billion sale to Sprint in 2004 before becoming chairman of the merged company. He stepped down as chairman about a year ago. Donahue says he was prepared to bring in a fresh crop of executives to revamp Sprint Nextel's marketing and operations teams. Some Sprint Nextel directors, however, are not eager to invite Donahue to lead the company again because Sprint has performed poorly since its merger with Nextel. That camp blames Nextel's network as the core of its problems, while many former Nextel board members blame Sprint's bureaucratic style. Still others are pushing for an outsider to come in and lead the company, like Embarq's Dan Hesse.
For more on the deal that never was:
- read this article from the WSJ
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Comments
Posted by Anonymous | November 30, 2007 - 3:17pm
Being an outsider now looking back in and being one of the founders of Sprint from the GTE side, it doesn't surprise me Sprint has turned out like this. One time there was innovation and the good old boy network stood to the side. Now the old boys have stifled growth and jump to conclusions of what will get them out of the rut. I don't believe Hesse is the one to do it. Sprint needs to get hungry again like it was in the late 80's and early 90's.
