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Sprint rejects bailout bid
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 Nov. 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
Related articles:
- Donahue to retire from Sprint as executive chairman
- Sprint's WiMAX strategy will likely undergo a tweak
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Comments
Posted by Anonymous | December 3, 2007 - 2:32pm
As the wife of a current Sprint Nextel (8yrs)employee, I can tell you Nextel is most certainly not the problem! Nextel was a strong and wonderful company to work for! Sprint has destroyed it from the inside out! The employees are just as disappointed as the customers. My husband's income has been cut to half, work conditions are miserable, benefits are pathetic (he even has to pay for his own cell and blackberry service), and the company even intentionally makes drastic "mistakes" in his commissions. After hearing rumors, we've been trying to wait it out in hopes Dohahue would return. Sad to see that won't happen.
Nice try in your efforts to blame Nextel. The company would have been extremely lucky to have Donahue bail them out. Big mistake Sprint. The company will soon be beyond redemption.
