T-Mobile USA Deal Shows $13 Billion Value Drop Since AT&T

Deutsche Telekom’s agreement to combine T-Mobile USA with MetroPCS reveals how the value of its unit may have dropped by $13 billion amid client losses following a failed sale to AT&T last year.

T-Mobile USA is worth about $26 billion including debt, based on MetroPCS’s share price and analyst estimates. Last year, federal regulators opposed a plan to sell T-Mobile to AT&T for $39 billion. Deutsche Telekom said it will own 74 percent of a combined entity with MetroPCS to increase the size of its U.S. operations and challenge AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel. Rene Obermann, chief executive officer of the Bonn- based company, may be accepting a lower valuation to facilitate an exit from the U.S. in the future, said Frederic Boulan, an analyst at Nomura in London.