T-Mobile: Too big to purchase? French Iliad withdraws acquisition offer

Having just increased its bid at the beginning of the month, French telecommunication provider Iliad has abandoned its efforts to purchase a 67.7 percent stake in T-Mobile US. The company had previously turned to the likes of Google and Microsoft for additional financial support, but there appeared to be little interest.

Iliad’s original attempt at purchasing a 56.6 percent stake at $33 a share fell through, as it was much lower than a previous offer from Sprint, which came in at $40 per share. Deutsche Telekom nor members of the board at T-Mobile US would entertain Iliad’s latest offer, leaving the company running up against its self-imposed October deadline to close a deal.

Iliad isn’t the first company to express an interested in T-Mobile. AT&T wanted to buy the company a few years back, and a potential deal with Sprint fell through earlier this year. Deutsche Telekom has been trying to shift T-Mobile as it sees the US market as too tightly controlled by AT&T and Verizon for healthy competition.

Unfortunately for Iliad, T-Mobile has been improving its market presence lately, having gained an additional 2.5 million subscribers in the first half of 2014. Even so, Deutsche Telekom is likely to continue searching for a buyer, but will probably wait until a spectrum auction later this fall before making its next move.