Reuters is now reporting that Clearwire has formally approved Sprint’s purchase offer which sees the carrier purchase the rest of the internet service provider it didn’t already own. The purchase is expected to be formally closed tomorrow ahead of the official clearance from the FCC for the wider SoftBank stake purchase, which is expected to be formally closed on Wednesday.
After all of the remaining hurdles are cleared, SoftBank is expected to begin the process of investing in the new Sprint entity, first by pumping in $5 billion in initial capital into the new company itself and a significantly expanded capital expenditure of $16 billion during this year into the next in order to expand coverage further from the Network Vision initiative already in place in order to reach parity with AT&T and Verizon within the next few years.
