Dish to Close Boost Purchase From T-Mobile After Months of Talks

(Bloomberg) -- Dish Network Corp. is set to acquire the Boost wireless business from T-Mobile US Inc., after the companies spent months hammering out the specifics of a deal reached last year.

The transaction will close by July 1, Dish said in a regulatory filing, without providing terms. The companies had been working out details, such as whether Boost customers would get phones that work on T-Mobile’s network.

T-Mobile was required to offload Boost, a pay-as-you-go wireless service, as part of its acquisition of Sprint Corp. -- a deal that turned it into the No. 2 carrier in the U.S., based on monthly subscribers.

Dish is expected to pay about $1.4 billion for Boost. The acquisition, which includes seven years of access to T-Mobile’s network, was coordinated by Justice Department antitrust chief Makan Delrahim in order to help create a fourth national wireless carrier and foster more competition.

T-Mobile Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter signed the agreement on behalf of T-Mobile and Sprint. He also announced Wednesday that he will retire on July 1 after 19 years with the company. Peter Osvaldik, the company’s chief accounting officer, will replace him.

In addition to selling Boost to Dish, T-Mobile is taking a $200 million noncash impairment charge for Sprint’s billing system. And the company has changed its TV strategy and will write down $218 million of goodwill connected to Layer3, a streaming TV service purchased in 2018, according to another filing Wednesday.

T-Mobile also said that it added between 800,000 and 900,000 regular monthly wireless subscribers in the second quarter, due to strong sales to businesses. The company had previously forecast a range of zero to 150,000 new subscribers. Coronavirus-related costs, meanwhile, will be as much as $450 million, with merger costs ranging between $800 million and $900 million.

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