Shareholders might have voted favorably for Sprint’s merger deal with SoftBank, but it seems most of them do not want to stick around to see what happens next.
CNET:
Sprint announced Monday that out of the more than 3 billion shares of Sprint stock outstanding, holders of 97 percent of those shares will be cashing out in the deal, rather than receiving shares in the “New Sprint.”
Only 3% of the current holders of Sprint shares have deemed to hold on to the company’s stock. 53% of the shareholders elected to receive cash, while 44% of the shareholders made no election, and were deemed to have selected the cash option by default.
Just one sticking point for Sprint in all this, more shareholders opted to cash out that the company expected. Sprint and SoftBank have $16.64 billion in cash in reserve to pay off any shareholders who wanted out. However, since the deal was “oversubscribed,” Sprint now needs to make a hybrid deal to the shareholders who wanted cash.
Sprint says that when the deal closes on Wednesday, the shareholders who elected for cash will earn $5.65 and .26 shares of New Sprint common stock for every share they currently own. The hardy 3% who elected to stick around and see how all this turns out will each receive a single share in the “New Sprint” for each current Sprint share they own.
