After Softbank and Sprint announced their big deal yesterday, Sprint now has amassed $8 Billion to their bank accounts. This could be trouble to their competitors. With failed deals with Nextel and 4G deal with clear, Sprint can now revamp themselves to compete with At&t and Verizon. Hopfully Sprint will do some good with this money and not make terrible decisons. The ball is now in Dan Hesse’s court.
The deal marks a turnaround for Hesse, 58, who took over five years ago in the aftermath of the failed Nextel merger and hasn’t booked an annual profit since. Just last year, he warned that the U.S. wireless market was headed toward a duopoly and that Sprint’s survival as an independent company was in doubt. With Softbank’s backing, Hesse has the cash and investor support to challenge his larger rivals like never before.
“This opens strategic options we have not had at any time during my tenure,” said Hesse on a conference call yesterday. “Sprint, for the first time in many years, will have the strengthened flexibility to play a key role in the evolution of the industry.”
