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buyout posts

RIM buys Torch Mobile, BlackBerrys might finally get a decent browser

by Nilay Patel posted Aug 24th 2009 @ 11:43AM

The default BlackBerry browser has long been laughably sad, but it looks like things are about to get better: RIM's just acquired Torch Mobile, the developers behind the Iris mobile browser. If you'll recall, Iris is a well-received WebKit-based browser for Windows Mobile that offers tabbed browsing, touch, and a skinnable UI -- and we hear it does a pretty good job rendering pages as well. Of course, since it's Windows Mobile-only at the moment it'll be a while before BlackBerry fans actually see any results from this acquisition, but it's nice to see RIM taking some big steps to address what's become a major shortfall with the platform -- and hey, maybe that extra time is what it'll take to add the promised full Flash and Silverlight support to the system. Yep, lots of solid potential here -- now if only RIM would build in proper IMAP support, we'd be all set.

[Via MobileTechWorld, thanks Ike]

Alltel tried to buy Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T as a public company

by Darren Murph posted Jun 24th 2008 @ 10:36AM

Unless you've been camped out under a Rhode Island-sized boulder for the past few weeks, chances are you know that Verizon has announced its intentions to acquire Alltel. During a recent interview with CEO Scott Ford, Talk Business host Roby Brock was able to get quite a few talking points out of the exec that didn't involve the most recent transaction. More specifically, Mr. Ford noted that prior to Alltel becoming a private company, it had "tried to buy Sprint three times, tried to buy AT&T Wireless [and] tried to buy T-Mobile." He continued by saying that "some of those times it went with partners, [while] some of those times it didn't." Essentially, Alltel was "doing everything it could to get to a national platform." Believe it or not, those quotes really are just the tip of the iceberg, but the full spill is entirely too detailed for this space. If you're curious to know what might have been, break out the reading glasses and hit the link below.

[Via mocoNews]

Verizon "in talks" to buy Alltel for $27 billion

by Darren Murph posted Jun 4th 2008 @ 4:01PM

Verizon has certainly courted Alltel before, but this time, the two could finally be rounding third base. According to a breaking report at CNBC, Verizon is "in deep in talks to acquire Alltel," which of course is America's fifth largest wireless carrier. It's no secret that Alltel has been riding fairly high of late, and unless your memory is totally shot, you'll likely recall that it was just recently "taken private by TPG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners in a $27.5 billion deal." Not surprisingly, officials at both outfits refused to comment on the rumblings, but if this does indeed go down, analysts are expecting Verizon to pay around 8x Alltel's current EBITDA, whereas TPG / Goldman Sachs paid 9.2x. We'll keep you posted on any developments.

Update: The talks have been confirmed by Vodafone which owns a 45% stake in VZW.

Microsoft completes Danger acquisition, creates new Premium Mobile Experiences division

by Nilay Patel posted Apr 15th 2008 @ 2:33PM

Microsoft's just announced that its $500M buyout of Sidekick maker Danger is complete, and that it's rolling the new team into its own unit, the Premium Mobile Experiences division. Ready to follow the chain of corporate command? PMX is under the Mobile Communications Business unit at MS, which itself falls under the Entertainment and Devices Division responsible for the Xbox and Zune. Got all that? Good. Danger's management team won't be directly calling the shots at PMX, though -- they'll be reporting to Roz Ho, who you might remember as the former head of the Mac Business Unit. Ho says the goal of PMX is to have people "smile every time they look at their phone," which hopefully means we'll be seeing a lot more Danger influence on Windows Mobile than the other way around. Still, "Premium Mobile Experiences" is an interesting choice of name, especially in the same division as the 360 and Zune -- dare we dream of a Microsoft-branded consumer phone?

[Via MocoNews]

Microsoft said to have dropped $500 million on Danger

by Donald Melanson posted Feb 12th 2008 @ 4:41PM

While Microsoft was doing little to hide how much it was willing to spend on Yahoo!, the company's been decidedly more coy about exactly how much it dropped to pick up Sidekick-maker Danger earlier this week. The ever-dependable Om Malik now claims to have turned up a figure, however, and while it pales compared to that Yahoo! offer, it's still quite a doozy. According to Om, a "fairly solid source" informed him that Microsoft parted with a full $500 million to bring Danger into its fold, with later-stage investors in Danger the biggest beneficiaries of that payday. What's more, that hefty price also got Om speculating that Microsoft may be about to "pull an Xbox" with its cellphone business, fearing that its current approach would relegate it to the business market -- a pretty safe assumption, if you ask us.

Microsoft buys Danger, Windows Mobile Sidekick imminent

by Joshua Topolsky posted Feb 11th 2008 @ 10:43AM

Sure, the folks in Redmond didn't get their grubby mitts on Yahoo! (yet), but at least they picked up a little something for their mobile division, namely: Danger. According to news just crossing the wires, the monolithic company has picked up the Sidekick-creators for an undisclosed amount, and will subsequently fold the phone-maker into its mobile wing. Is there a Windows Mobile version of the Hiptop in our future? Survey says yes.

Palm closes recapitalization deal with Elevation Partners

by Darren Murph posted Oct 25th 2007 @ 2:02PM

No surprises here, but Palm's "strategic recapitalization" effort has officially been closed. Just months after shareholders gave a collective thumbs-up to the idea (hey, who can say no to Bono?), Elevation Partners has indeed "invested $325 million in Palm, which the company will utilize along with existing cash and $400 million of new debt to finance a $9-per share cash distribution." Additionally, a number of new faces have been appointed jobs within the outfit, and the "total number of directors on the board has been increased from eight to nine." Ed Colligan, Palm's president and CEO, proclaimed that this "transaction has laid the groundwork for the firm to recapture its position as the leading innovator and brand of the mobile-computing revolution." Now that's the spirit, Ed.

[Via mocoNews]

Leap says "no thanks" to MetroPCS buyout offer

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 16th 2007 @ 9:41PM

Ooh, in your face, MetroPCS! Leap Wireless has rejected a multi-billion dollar stock swap proposed by its fellow regional carrier a couple weeks ago, citing... well, to be brief, a bum deal. MetroPCS was looking to trade each share of Leap for 2.75 shares of its own stock, a formula that actually values Leap at about $4.7 billion -- significantly below the $5.3 billion pegged the day merger discussions kicked off. Leap CEO Doug Hutcheson officially responded to the offer today, bluntly stating that it "dramatically undervalues" his company while citing Leap's strong growth, its prospects for future buildouts, and MetroPCS' infrastructure troubles in New York and Los Angeles as reasons why his shareholders deserve more bang for their buck. That being said, Hutcheson left room for further discussions; an eventual deal makes sense, considering that the two carriers' combined footprint would approximate that of a national carrier. Can MetroPCS pony up the requisite cash to be taken seriously here?

A match made in hell: Microsoft eying RIM?

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 30th 2007 @ 2:33PM

A completely unsubstantiated rumor floating among day traders has RIM stock up a pretty penny today, suggesting that Microsoft may be looking to acquire Waterloo's finest in response to Google's meddling in the mobile space. At this point, pundits seem to be merely saying that it "makes sense," not that they've actually caught wind of anything substantial -- but we're kinda hoping Microsoft doesn't get any ideas here. We're not seeing Microsoft pushing a non-Windows Mobile based platform onto licensees any time soon -- particularly one that relies as heavily on Java as the BlackBerry OS does -- and a BlackBerry-branded device running Windows Mobile makes about as much sense as a Mac running Wind... oh, wait.

[Via BloggingBuyouts]

Will Bell Canada buyout lead to a GSM conversion?

by Sean Cooper posted Jul 6th 2007 @ 8:16AM

Now that BCE's $51.7 billion buyout looks solid with the potential victory going to the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, we can finally issue a collective sigh or relief. Bell is likely going to stay Bell, no merger with Telus looms on the Horizon, and all is well and good in Canadian CDMA-land. Or is it? The Financial Post is reporting on some Analyst's predictions that will see Bell shift from CDMA to GSM. We see these types of rumors surface now and again, and while Bell likely salivates at Rogers Wireless' annual $450 million GSM roaming revenue, the cost of said conversion would be out of the park. Of course, this is all fantasy 'til we here something official but we definitely aren't counting chickens around here.

Bell Canada for sale

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 18th 2007 @ 11:29AM

So, is Bell Canada ready for a buyout? Yep. Bell Canada's corporate baby daddy, BCE Inc., has announced that it's in talks with four companies -- three Canadian and one US -- to sell out in a deal that could ultimately fetch as much as $40 CDN (about $35) for a company that's currently trading in the $38.50 CDN range. Of course, this all runs counter to the firm denials Bell was issuing just a couple weeks back (no surprise there). Current indications are that none of the firms involved in buyout discussions are already in the wireless carrier biz, so our hopes (read: fears) of a US-Canadian supercarrier are, at least for the moment, dashed.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Alltel subject of possible bidding war

by Michael Caputo posted Jan 5th 2007 @ 1:00PM

Wouldn't it be great if Verizon Wireless or Sprint had features like Inner Circle? Don't get your hopes up just yet as neither are going to start marketing Alltel's ingenious plan, however some insiders (not this one either) think that Alltel might be the subject of a possible bidding war between the second and third largest carriers. If this were to happen and Verizon were to come out on top of everything, that would make them the largest CDMA carrier with close to 70 million customers. Just imagine, all those customers and they still can't manage to get the dead zone around our office cleared up

Sprint Nextel swallows affiliate UbiquiTel

by Chris Ziegler posted Jul 6th 2006 @ 11:42PM

In a move that surprises absolutely no one keeping up on the aftermath of Sprint Nextel's merger, the acquisition of Sprint affiliate UbiquiTel has closed this week in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.3 billion. In exchange for taking on UbiquiTel's $300-odd million of net debt, Sprint Nextel adds an additional 452,000 direct subscribers and gains territory in 9 states for a total of roughly 8.3 million in population. Even better, they avoid the wrath of yet another affiliate miffed by the non-compete clause busting merger, which added Nextel territory to many areas serviced by Sprint affiliates and vice versa. With the billions Sprint has now shed on affiliate buyouts, mergin' ain't as cheap as it used to be, it seems.

[Via The Wireless Report]

NTL makes bid for Virgin Mobile UK buyout

by Paul Miller posted Apr 4th 2006 @ 12:47PM

Through various combinations of offers involving weird fractions of shares and certain amounts of "pence," NTL has reached an agreement of with the Independent Board of Virgin Mobile Holdings to buy out the entire Virgin Mobile MVNO. The straight up cash offer is GBP 962.4 million ($1.68 billion USD), 372 pence per share. NTL is also offering 0.23245 shares of their stock for Virgin Mobile shares, or 0.18596 NTL shares plus 67 pence each. Virgin Mobile, which operates on the T-Mobile network, is the UK's largest MVNO, at 4.3 million subscribers. NTL is also entering into an agreement that allows them to brand their TV and fixed-line phone services as Virgin. We can't say we've exactly crunched all the numbers, so it's hard to give a thumbs up or down on the fiscal validity of the offer, but we're cooking up a sweet graph in Excel right now -- drop shadows and everything.