John Legere - CEO
Yes. Okay. Theres a few things. First of all, the timing of Mike and I has been in the works since 2012. I mean, certainly, from the work that I do with
the Board, and as you know, Im very happy with my tenure at T-Mobile. I think its going to get even better in the months that are left. But a CEO with a Board that doesnt have a good
succession plan fails. And we work very, very hard, not just on the succession of the CEO, but I would argue that weve got 15 years worth of leadership at our table that is better than anything anybody in this industry or others has.
So the timing, as to why now, the timing was always expected to be now, but we always expected for the New
T-Mobile to exist about 6 months ago, and that was kind of the timing. Its Mikes time. We know that. Hes ready. He is at the perfect point. Hes done all the work. Its time for him
to lead. And I would also say this. It going into trial, possibly, we also understood that in trying to find weaknesses of the story that were telling, one of the things people would say is, Oh well, Johns contract ends in
April. How do we know whos coming in? Maybe its going to be somebody who doesnt believe in anything. How do we know the Un-carrier strategy is going to continue? And these are important
components of why this deal should be approved.
So youve seen a few things at once, right? One, you saw the New
T-Mobile Un-carrier 1.0, which made it very clear, and we just saw 2.0. No, the second that Johns done, Mike Sieverts coming in, and he not only believes and
supports, he jointly hand-in-hand created and architected all of these Un-carrier moves. So thats the why now. Trial starts
December 9. We want that done before then. We think its a pertinent fact.
And the rest of this timing and moving, it does seem every now and then
that we have an announcement to make about another executive. Well, what that is, is every part of T-Mobile continues to see, no, its not just time to go. Braxtons got more work to do.
Nevilles got more work to do, and the team loves it here, and we do focus very, very hard on development and execution of the team beneath, and Mikes done a great part of that work.
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Richard Hamilton Prentiss - Raymond
James & Associates, Inc., Research DivisionHead of Telecommunication Services Equity Research
Sure. And then the business combination
agreement, back to Phils question, any thought about when we might get a resolution on that? I know you said as soon as possible. Is that something hours, days or weeks away? What kind of timeframe do you think we should be thinking of?
John Legere - CEO
Well, the shareholders are working on
it as we speak. Its not I say its going well and certainly, if its going extremely well, it would be papered and moved forward. I cant give you a timeframe. We are endeavoring for that to be discussed as soon as
possible and it obviously is covering all of the areas that youve all speculated, so you we just got to stay tuned on that. But again, I want to reiterate that the parties, at the shareholder level as well, are engaged and totally
focused on doing this at the time that they are focused together on closing this transaction. So its had its moments, but well get there.
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