Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) has set June 12 as the date for a
shareholder vote on selling a 70% stake to Japan's SoftBank Corp.
(9984.TO) for $20.1 billion.
The company had tentatively set that date, but the plan wasn't
yet approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The meeting
will be held in Overland Park, Kan., where Sprint is based.
Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, is intertwined in a
series of deals. After striking a deal with SoftBank last fall,
Dish Network Corp. (DISH) made a competing $25.5 billion proposal
to buy Sprint last month.
Sprint's board has formed a special committee to evaluate the
Dish offer and Sprint recently won approval from SoftBank to gather
more information from Dish.
Sprint itself is in the process of buying the portion of
mobile-broadband company Clearwire Corp. (CLWR) that it doesn't
already own for $2.2 billion. Clearwire shareholders will vote on
that deal May 21.
Write to Thomas Gryta at thomas.gryta@dowjones.com
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