The saga continues. Sprint-Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) and Clearwire Corp. (NASDAQ: CLWR) have today amended the agreement between the two companies to raise Sprint’s offer for the nearly 50% of Clearwire’s shares that it does not own to $5.00. That’s 47% higher than Sprint’s previous offer of $3.40 and about 14% a share better than the $4.40 per share offer from Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH).
Shares of Clearwire were halted for about half an hour preceding the announcement. The new offer from Sprint values Clearwire at around $14 billion, and represents a premium of 285% above Clearwire’s price when the bidding began in October 2012.
Sprint said it has received commitments from other shareholders representing about 9% of Clearwire’s shares to vote their shares in support of this latest offer. These shareholders have also agreed to sell their shares to Sprint in the event the transaction does not go through. All told, Sprint says it has commitments for approximately 45% of the shares of Clearwire that it does not already own.
Clearwire has agreed to a termination fee of $115 million if the acquisition by Sprint does not close and has also agreed to waive a standstill position among Sprint, Clearwire, and other of Clearwire’s strategic investors if the transaction does not close.
Shares of Clearwire are up 6.6% at $5.01 after posting a new 52-week high of $5.03. The 52-week low is $0.83.
Sprint’s shares are up 1.7% at $7.07 in a 52-week range of $3.05 to $7.50.
Dish’s shares are down 2.2% at $38.44 in a 52-week range of $26.12 to $40.95.
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