Continuing its mission to buy out its affiliates, Sprint Nextel said it would acquire Northern PCS Services in Minnesota for $312.5 million. The agreement, which includes an unspecified amount of assumed debt, is expected to close in the third quarter.
Northern PCS, based in Waite Park, Minn., provides Sprint PCS services in certain small to mid-size markets in Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Iowa, serving more than 167,000 direct wireless subscribers and more than 69,000 reseller subscribers in a coverage area of more than 1.8 million people. It employs about 240 people and had revenues for the twelve months ended December 31, 2006 of $130 million, Sprint said.
Since the completion of its $35 billion merger with Nextel in 2005, Sprint has had to deal with disputes with its various affiliates who believed the acquisition violated their exclusivity agreement with Sprint. Last year Sprint bought Ubiquitel for $1.3 billion in cash.
For more about Sprint's acquisition of Northern PCS:
- read this release
- take a look at this article from The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)