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Sprint Nears Six-Month High as T-Mobile Merger Speculation Grows

Sprint, T-Mobile Jump on Report That They May Clinch Merger Soon

(Bloomberg) -- Sprint Corp. neared a six-month high Friday on renewed speculation that T-Mobile US Inc. and its deep-pocketed German owners will clinch a deal to merge with the carrier.

Sprint gained as much as 10 percent to $6.62, its highest price since Nov. 3, after Reuters reported that a transaction agreement may come next week. The two companies have been making progress in negotiating previously contentious terms, according to the news service, which cited unnamed people familiar with the situation.

Bloomberg News reported this month that the two sides had restarted talks, five months after an earlier attempt fell apart. The previous discussions broke down after executives tussled over how control of the combined entity could be shared, people with knowledge of the talks said at the time.

The deliberations are further complicated because they involve overseas shareholders. Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. owns almost 85 percent of Sprint, while Deutsche Telekom AG controls T-Mobile.

Shares of T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom both climbed as much as 2.2 percent on Friday. SoftBank rose 4.1 percent on Friday in Tokyo.

SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom declined to comment. Representatives for T-Mobile and Sprint, meanwhile, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nick Turner in New York at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Scott Moritz in New York at smoritz6@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Drew Armstrong

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