Dish launches $25B bid for Sprint

From CNET News.com: Dish Network has submitted a merger proposal for Sprint Nextel valued at $25.5 billion, putting itself into competition with Japan's Softbank to take over the wireless carrier.

Dish announced this morning that it is offering Sprint shareholders a total consideration of $25.5 billion, consisting of $17.3 billion in cash and $8.2 billion in stock. Sprint shareholders would receive $7 per share, and the cash and stock combination would represent a 13 percent premium to the value of the existing SoftBank proposal, according to Dish.

"The Dish proposal clearly presents Sprint shareholders with a superior alternative to the pending SoftBank proposal," Charlie Ergen, chairman of Dish Network, said in a statement. "Sprint shareholders will benefit from a higher price with more cash while also creating the opportunity to participate more meaningfully in a combined Dish/Sprint with a significantly-enhanced strategic position and substantial synergies that are not attainable through the pending SoftBank proposal."

A Sprint representative declined to comment on the proposal.

Dish's proposal is a culmination of the company's long-desired entry into the wireless business. With the company's core satellite-TV business slowing amid competition from rivals such as DirecTV and the traditional cable and telecom providers, Dish and Ergen have long coveted a way to bundle its services with a wireless offering. Over the past few months, the company has been building up its war chest for such an ambitious deal.

Dish's offer, of course, throws a wrinkle into an existing deal that's already along the path for approval. Last October, Softbank launched a $20.1 billion bid to acquire 70 percent of Sprint. Under that deal, SoftBank would pay shareholders $12.1 billion and also give the carrier $8 billion in cash for network upgrades and other improvements.

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