Dish lines up financing for Sprint bid
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Dish lines up financing for Sprint bid

Dish Network has reportedly lined up financing for its $25.5 billion bid for Sprint Nextel.

There have been attempts by rivaling bidder Softbank to persuade banks to boycott the bid, according to the Financial Times.

Dish needs approximately $9 billion in financing to back the bid, and Masayoshi Son, chief executive at Softbank claimed this factor was one of the main weaknesses of the bid from the US satellite provider.

The Sprint board has already approved Softbank’s offer, but a special committee has been formed by the company to rule whether Dish should be formally invited to bid.

A consortium of banks have reportedly been lined up to fund the bid by Dish billionaire owner Charlie Ergen, including Barclays, Jefferies, Macquarie and Royal Bank of Canada.

It has arranged a $2.5 billion bond deal, and will provide it with up to $6.5 billion in syndicated loans.

Softbank had reportedly attempted to stop Dish’s financing talks by claiming banks involved with the company would not be permitted to take part in a $60 share listing of e-commerce group Alibaba, of which Softbank owns a one-third stake.

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