Who Will Buy Sprint?

Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse has made it no secret that he strongly opposes AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile, which he says will create a duopoly which will ultimately result in Sprint being forced out of the picture and the only way to survive would be for someone to buy Sprint.

According to Bloomberg, analysts have said that the company that has the most to gain if they were to buy Sprint would most likely be CenturyLink, the biggest company in telecommunications that does not have a wireless unit.

“CenturyLink is a company with a really good balance sheet and looking for areas to invest its capital, its free cash flow in growth,” said Chris Larsen of Piper Jaffray Cos. He also went on to say that “If Sprint can stabilize and then begin to grow its customer base, it becomes a growth vehicle for them.”

If AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile goes through it stands additional customers bringing their combined total of 137 million customers with Verizon Wireless in second place at about 104 million, which will leave Sprint a distant third with 51 million. No word from Verizon with regards to the acquisition but we can now see why Sprint has been so vocal about it. At the moment CenturyLink has declined to comment on this speculation.