Bloomberg
AT&T Inc., the second-largest U.S. wireless carrier, agreed to buy Leap Wireless International Inc. (LEAP) for $1.2 billion, giving the company 5 million customers, more airwaves and a larger piece of the pay-as-you-go market.
Under the deal, Leap shareholders also will get the right to proceeds from the sale of Leap’s 700-megahertz spectrum in Chicago, which was bought for $204 million last year, according to a statement. The offer of $15 a share in cash represents an 88 percent premium over Leap’s closing price of $7.98 yesterday. San Diego-based Leap also has $2.8 billion in net debt.
AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson has been on a hunt for spectrum — the airwaves that let mobile devices make calls and download data — ever since regulators blocked his $39 billion proposal in 2011 to acquire Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile USA unit. Since then, he’s resorted to smaller acquisitions, such as a $1.9 billion deal in January to acquire airwaves from Verizon Wireless, to build enough capacity to handle increasing demand for music downloads and video streaming on mobile devices.