SoftBank in talks to acquire T-Mobile, discussing funding

By Maki Shiraki and Nobuhiro Kubo TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's SoftBank Corp is in talks to acquire U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile US Inc and is discussing funding for a deal with financial institutions, sources close to the matter said on Wednesday. SoftBank is looking to have its recently acquired U.S. unit Sprint Corp take a majority stake in T-Mobile from the latter's parent Deutsche Telekom AG in the financial year starting April, one of the sources added. The deal, which media reports have said would be valued at about $20 billion - in line with the $21.6 billion SoftBank paid for Sprint this summer, would help the Tokyo-based company leapfrog U.S. rivals Verizon and AT&T Inc to become the world's No.2 mobile carrier by revenue. It would also bring SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son closer to his ambition of building the world's biggest mobile Internet company - if he can overcome U.S. regulators' expected concerns about competition issues.

via Business News - Yahoo Finance http://finance.yahoo.com/news/softbank-talks-acquire-t-mobile-discussing-funding-sources-060202047--sector.html