Majority Of Sprint Shareholders Vote To Receive Cash In SoftBank Takeover

(RTTNews) - Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) and SoftBank Corp (SFTBF.PK, SFTBY.PK) announced the preliminary results of elections made by Sprint shareholders regarding their preferences as to the form of merger consideration they will receive in connection with the pending transaction between Sprint and SoftBank. The deadline for Sprint shareholders to have made elections in connection with the transaction was 5:00 p.m., New York time, on July 5, 2013.

Sprint said that about 53 percent of its outstanding shares, elected to receive cash and about 44 percent of its outstanding shares, made no election and therefore will be deemed to have elected to receive cash.

Sprint also said that approximately 3 percent of its outstanding shares, elected to receive shares of Sprint common stock.

Proration is required if either the available cash consideration ($16.64 billion) or the available New Sprint common stock consideration is oversubscribed. As a result of the elections, the available cash consideration has been oversubscribed.

Based on the number of shares of Sprint common stock outstanding as of July 5, 2013, each share of Sprint common stock for which a cash election (or no election) was made will be converted into the right to receive about $5.647658 in cash and 0.26174408 shares of New Sprint common stock.

Sprint and SoftBank currently expect to close the merger on July 10, 2013, effective after the close of trading that day.

Last week, The Federal Communications Commission announced that it voted unanimously to approve transactions among SoftBank Corp, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. (CLWR). This decision completed all Federal government reviews of both SoftBank's investment in Sprint and Sprint's acquisition of Clearwire.

On June 25, Mobile phone carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. said its shareholders approved the merger with Japanese telecom company SoftBank Corp. The deal will see SoftBank acquiring a 78 percent stake in Sprint - the U.S.'s third largest mobile carrier - for a sweetened offer of $21.6 billion.