Sprint Pares Clearwire Voting Interest to Less Than 50%

Sprint Nextel, the third- largest US wireless carrier, cut its voting stake in Clearwire to less than 50 percent to settle investor concerns that the partner may be considered a subsidiary.

The carrier told Clearwire on June 1 it pared its voting interest to 49.8 percent from 53.7 percent, according to a regulatory filing. The move is a bid to quell any concerns that Clearwire’s debt would become a liability to Sprint. The voting change doesn't affect Sprint’s equity stake in Clearwire or its relationship as a customer of the carrier. Sprint has pledged as much as $5 billion to upgrade its network over the next three to five years to combine several disparate bands of spectrum onto a single type of base station. Clearwire and Sprint have held talks about an arrangement to share network equipment.