Japan's SoftBank Confident it Will Close Sprint Merger Despite DISH Counteroffer

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On Monday, it appeared that DISH network may have thrown a large monkey-wrench into the plans of the Japanese Company SoftBank to merge with Sprint. They made a counter offer to buy all of Sprint for $25.5 Billion. This was a 13% premium over SoftBank's offer to buyout 70% of Sprint. Despite this potential industry shakeup, SoftBank issued a press statement expressing confidence their deal will still go through on July 1st. Here's what they said,

"SoftBank believes that the agreed terms of our transaction with Sprint offer Sprint shareholders superior short and long term benefits to Dish's highly conditional preliminary proposal. The SoftBank-Sprint transaction is in the advanced stages of receiving the necessary approvals, and we expect to consummate the transaction on July 1, 2013."-Softbank statement

There is one very good reason why SoftBank is moving forward with confidence. Their deal has already moved past all the regulatory hurdles. Whereas DISH would have to start over from scratch, which would likely take several months. Interestingly, even if either Sprint or SoftBank were to walk away from this deal, both companies would actually benefit. Here's a quote with the explanation,

If Softbank were to turn around and walk away, it would end up considerably richer for its efforts. A convertible bond that Softbank bought from Sprint could be sold for a $1 billion profit, and if Sprint decides to go with Dish or another suitor or even if it merely walks away, the Japanese communications firm would receive a $600 million break-up fee. Judging from Softbank's statement though, it plans on closing the deal and its a message to Dish that the Japanese firm is not going to back down.

As you can see, Sprint and SoftBank are in a win-win situation. Ultimately, it appears that SoftBank thinks the future value of this deal is more lucrative than walking away though, because their statement obviously means they intend to stick it out.

Source: PhoneArena