Sprint Nextel vs. AT&T war of words continues

The war of words between AT&T Inc. (T) and Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) grew more heated Tuesday afternoon as Sprint Nextel arranged a hastily thrown together press conference where it claimed AT&T Mobility had misrepresented comments made by CEO Dan Hesse.
Sprint Nextel noted in the press conference, which was so hastily thrown together that it would not allow for any questions, that a statement from AT&T Mobility last week that called into question Hesse’s recent comments in regards to AT&T Inc.’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc.
The comments from AT&T, which were made in a company blog posting by Jim Cicconi, senior executive VP of external and legislative affairs at AT&T, claimed that comments made by Hesse were inconsistent with previous statements made by the Sprint Nextel CEO.
According to Cicconi’s public blog post, Hesse previously claimed that mergers and acquisitions are “absolutely a way to get the growth in the industry, if a particular transaction makes sense for anybody,” and that Hesse’s statements lately are in direct opposition to his previous demeanor.
“Given that Sprint is a major competitor to AT&T in the hyper competitive wireless market Mr. Hesse describes, no one should be surprised that they would oppose this merger,” Cicconi wrote in his post. “But it is self-serving for them to argue that the highly competitive wireless market they cited only months ago is now threatened by the very type of transaction they seemed prepared to defend previously.”
Cicconi’s statements come in the wake of Sprint Nextel issuing releases opposing the merger, with Hesse cited as having criticized the deal on several occasions since its inception. Cicconi has a valid point to make, considering that Sprint Nextel had shown interest in pursuing T-Mobile USA for itself in the past.
During the Sprint Nextel conference call, a Sprint Nextel spokesman said that AT&T’s comments were “incomplete and misleading,” and that the carrier has a vested interest in distracting the media from the facts of its proposed acquisition.
Sprint Nextel added that Hesse has always been consistent in claiming that today’s wireless industry is competitive and that any “assertion or claim to the contrary is false.” Sprint Nextel claims that the competitiveness of the industry will be altered if AT&T is allowed to take over T-Mobile USA, which is currently the fourth largest operator and a significant source of competition in the market.
Sprint Nextel added that on merger and acquisition activity, it was not opposed to such actions, only in such actions that would result in a virtual duopoly with 80% of industry revenues concentrated in two operators. Sprint Nextel’s current position was bolstered by then No. 3 operator Sprint Corp. acquiring No. 5 operator Nextel Communications Inc. in 2004 for $35 billion.
Somehow we don’t think this will be the end of the discussion.