US Cellular to be acquired by T-Mobile and Verizon (report)

After successfully acquiring Mint Mobile for $1.3 billion, T-Mobile is now eyeing yet another regional carrier, US Cellular. The latter has been looking for potential buyers for quite a while, so it’s now just a matter of offering the right price for its assets.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, US Cellular is very close to be sold to two major carriers in the country: T-Mobile and Verizon. Source familiar with US Cellular’s plans claim that negotiations with T-Mobile are almost over and the Un-carrier will purchase a big chunk of US Cellular for about $2 billion.

The rest of US Cellular assets are expected to be acquired by Verizon, but negotiations have stalled for unknown reasons. Both T-Mobile and Verizon will purchase US Cellular’s operations and spectrum licenses, but the regional MVNO will get to keep all its 4,000 cell towers, which will be sold separately.

The reason T-Mobile and Verizon both made offers for US Cellular assets is to avoid any potential antitrust concerns. If negotiations between Verizon and US Cellular fail, it’s unlikely that T-Mobile will opt to acquire all the regional carrier’s assets instead.