Dish serves up offer for Clearwire

US satellite player Dish Network Corporation is aiming to scupper a potential deal between national mobile operator Sprint and Wimax operator Clearwire. The firm has confirmed it has made a bid for the latter, to purchase all of the Clearwire common shares at $3.30 – a higher price than the $2.97 offered by Sprint.

“We look forward to working with Clearwire’s Special Committee as it evaluates our proposal,” said Tom Cullen, Dish executive vice president of corporate development. The firm added that it does not intend to comment further at this time.

Sprint looked close to sealing the acquisition of the Wimax player; after it gained ownership of a 50 per cent stake in the firm and made a bid of $2.2bn for the remaining shares. The firm still believes its own agreement to acquire Clearwire is superior to the highly conditional Dish proposal.

“The Dish proposal includes a series of interdependent commercial agreements, debt and equity purchases and spectrum sales, which together with the other conditions required by Dish to complete the transaction, makes the proposal not viable,” the firm said in a statement. “In addition, the Dish proposal would require Sprint to voluntarily waive rights that it holds as a stockholder of Clearwire and that it possesses through various vendor and customer contracts that significantly predate Sprint’s proposed acquisition of the remainder of Clearwire.”

The operator added that it does not intend to waive any of its rights and looks forward to closing the transaction with Clearwire.