The complete story of how T-Mobile finally reached a merger agreement with Sprint

Sprint and T-Mobile filed their S-4 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. An S-4 is a filing that details a business combination or exchange offer and includes details such as share distribution, amounts, terms and other information relating to the transaction. Included in the S-4 from Sprint and T-Mobile is a lengthy and detailed timeline about how the companies finally reached their April merger agreement. As noted in the filing, the companies had been in discussions about the transaction for a full year before that. And, even more interestingly, three other companies were involved in merger discussions during that period with Sprint and T-Mobile. The companies are only identified as “Company A,” “Company B” and “Company C,” so it’s unclear whether those companies were cable companies like Charter, other wireless providers like AT&T or players like Dish Network. Nonetheless, the full story of Sprint and T-Mobile’s merger negotiations is worth a read.