Iliad’s $15 billion bid for a 56.6% stake in T-Mobile US came as a shock to the market in early August, which had been expecting a deal to materialise with SoftBank-owned Sprint.
However, Sprint has since abandoned its bid following continued resistance from US regulators, and in a bid to better its own offer – which had been deemed inadequate – Iliad is now planning to bid for a larger stake, according to Bloomberg.
According to people familiar with the matter, Iliad will still offer the same price of approximately $33 per share, but will significantly increase the number of shares.
This offer is still notably lower than that of Sprint, which had bid $40 per share, and two executives at Deutsche Telekom told reporters that the deal was worth $35 per share at the very minimum.
Xavier Niel, founder and majority shareholder at Iliad, has allegedly set a deadline of mid-October to reach a preliminary agreement with Deutsche Telekom, and decide whether the French firm will up its bid or walk away.
