T-Mobile says it’s financially prepared to close Sprint merger

By Sara Rosenberg

New York, March 19 – T-Mobile USA Inc. announced in a news release on Thursday that it is financially prepared to close its planned merger with Sprint Corp., based on previously secured commitments for senior credit facilities and bridge financing.

The company has been in communication with all 16 banks and has not received any notification that any of the banks are unprepared to fund their commitments to support the closing of the merger transaction.

“We are very happy to have assembled sixteen leading U.S. and global banks in our committed bridge financing for the acquisition of Sprint. This diversification of banks, and the spreading of the committed bridge financing creates a very high-quality bridge,” said Braxton Carter, chief financial officer, in the release.

As previously reported, the company has a commitment for $8 billion of credit facilities, split between a $4 billion seven-year covenant-lite term loan and a $4 billion five-year revolver, and a $19 billion 364-day senior secured covenant-lite bridge facility.

Barclays, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Morgan Stanley Senior Funding Inc. and RBC Capital Markets are the joint lead arrangers and joint bookrunners on the credit facilities and bridge loan. BNP Paribas Securities Corp., Commerzbank, Credit Agricole, TD Securities (USA) LLC and Wells Fargo Securities LLC are joint bookrunners on the revolver and bridge loan, and co-managers for the term loan. Other co-managers on the credit facilities and bridge loan include Banco Santander, Societe Generale, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc., NatWest and U.S. Bank.

Deutsche Bank is the administrative agent on the credit facilities and Goldman Sachs is the administrative agent on the bridge loan.

Proceeds from the debt will be used to refinance certain existing debt at T-Mobile and Sprint, and for post-closing working capital needs of the combined company.

Under the agreement, the companies will merge in an all-stock transaction at a fixed exchange ratio of 0.10256 T-Mobile shares for each Sprint share.

T-Mobile is a Bellevue, Wash.-based provider of wireless services, Sprint is an Overland Park, Kan.-based communications services company. The combined company will be named T-Mobile and will have headquarters in Bellevue, Wash.

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