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Dish

Sprint leaves Dish in the dust as Japanese bank ups bid by $1.5 billion

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

June 11, 2013 | 2 min read

Tired of waiting, Sprint Nextel’s board has effectively rejected Dish Network’s $25.5 billion buyout offer for the company . Instead, it is likely to sell to a Japanese bank which has upped its bid for the American wireless carrier by $1.5 billion.

Sprint: Tired of waiting?

Tokyo-based SoftBank raised its offer to $21.6 billion and bolstered the cash portion of the proposed merger by $4.5 billion to $16.6 billion.

The Sprint board unanimously approved the amended deal with SoftBank and also disclosed that the special committee assigned to review Dish’s bid has determined that it “is not reasonably likely to lead to a superior offer.”

“Sprint has engaged with DISH since April 15 and, after receiving waivers from SoftBank under the Merger Agreement, allowed DISH due diligence to commence on May 21.

"Despite the Special Committee’s diligence, DISH has not put forward an actionable offer,” Sprint said.

“As a consequence of the lack of progress with DISH and the improved terms from SoftBank, the Special Committee ended its discussions with DISH and will request that DISH destroy all of the Sprint confidential information made available in the course of its diligence.”

Dish stated: “We continue to believe that Sprint has tremendous value. We will analyse the revised SoftBank bid as we consider our strategic options.”

Dish is America's No. 2 satellite-TV company and Sprint is the No. 3 wireless carrier.

Dish wanted to create the first US nationwide provider of pay-TV and wireless services.

Sprint and SoftBank are now aiming to close their merger, initially announced last year, by early July.

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