Sprint has kept itself in the news cycle pretty intensely in the last few weeks -- what with all of that getting bought by Softbank and such -- and now it has another big announcement. Today Sprint will finally take a controlling interest in partner Clearwire, purchasing 30.9 million Class A shares (and fractional interests in some Class B shares) for $100 million. Sprint will now own 50.8-percent of the company. Previously, the two companies simply had a business partnership, with Sprint as a large investor.
The initial partnership was formed to deploy WiMax for Sprint and Clearwire customers. Since then, Sprint has made the decision to move towards LTE, and needed a controlling stake in Clearwire in order to use their vast spectrum holdings without restriction.
Source: Reuters
