Sprint and T-Mobile C.E.O.s Are in Washington to Sell Their Merger. Here’s What They’ll Confront.
[ad_1] The reason for two American carriers to need approval? T-Mobile, which is acquiring Sprint, is controlled by Deutsche Telekom of Germany. Sprint is mostly owned by SoftBank of Japan. Deutsche Telekom and SoftBank had to undergo reviews by Cfius when they bought control of their respective American wireless providers years ago, which suggests that any transfer of assets between the two now would pass muster. But the Trump administration has recently taken a harder stance on foreign-owned acquisitions. It pre-emptively blocked Broadcom’s hostile bid for the chip maker Qualcomm . While Broadcom is based in Singapore, and had announced that it would relocate to the United States, the logic was that any change at Qualcomm could hamper its ability to help build out the next-generation wireless network, known as 5G, in the United States. The administration has also said it might consider nationalizing the 5G network, underscoring the sensitivity of the technology that underlies...