Dish Network appears undaunted in its bid to out-bid Softbank for a stake in Sprint Nextel, announcing today plans to offer $2.5 billion in senior notes to help fund its $25.5 billion offer to acquire a 68% stake in Sprint Nextel.
“The net proceeds of the offering will be placed into escrow,” Dish noted in a statement. “The net proceeds from the sale of the notes in this offering will be released from escrow to make a cash distribution to Dish Network to finance a portion of the cash consideration for Dish Network’s proposed merger with Sprint Nextel.”
Dish added that if the deal to “merge” with Sprint Nextel falls through, it will redeem all of the notes. With its latest note offering, Dish looks to at least be trying to shore up some of the financial questions surrounding its proposed deal.
Dish announced its Sprint Nextel plans last month, which looked to counter Softbank’s proposed $20.1 billion acquisition of a 70% stake in Sprint Nextel announced late last year. Dish Network’s proposition also followed an offer to acquire Clearwire out from under Sprint Nextel. That proposal appears to have run out of steam as Clearwire appears to be leaning towards the Sprint Nextel offer.
Softbank late last month allowed Sprint Nextel to proceed with talks with Dish Network about its offer, but countered the next day with a presentation as to why its offer for Sprint Nextel was superior to the Dish proposal. Softbank has also reportedly suggested that banks interested in participating in the initial public offering of its Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba may want to steer clear of helping Dish Network finance its bid for Sprint Nextel.
Both Dish and Softbank have unveiled websites laying out the benefits of their proposals.
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