T-Mobile’s John Legere and Mike Sievert will address Sprint employees Friday during a Sprint “town hall.”
“I highly encourage you to attend in person, at a watch party or online—and to ask the questions that are on your mind. We will do our best, but please understand that it is still too early in the process to answer all your questions,” wrote Sprint’s CEO Michel Combes in a recent email to employees that was filed with the SEC.
“I’m excited to invite you to a special edition Town Hall next week with leaders from the T-Mobile team,” Combes added. “It will be a great opportunity for you to get to know John Legere, CEO, and Mike Sievert, chief operating officer, and hear their vision for the combined company.”
T-Mobile's management has been lined up to take control of the merged T-Mobile and Sprint.
In the letter, first noted by the Kansas City Business Journal, Combes also said that Kevin Crull, Sprint’s chief strategy officer, is heading an “Integration Management Office.”
“At Sprint, Kevin and the team have been working on integration plans for the past four months. He has assembled a talented team that represents every Sprint function and business, across 30 workstreams,” Combes wrote. “They are focused on executing all requirements related to ‘Day 0,’ the day we close the transaction, if approved. And for ‘Day 1’—about 60-90 days following the close—which is when we would begin marketing and selling an integrated value proposition. Their objective is to create a new T-Mobile that represents the BEST people, processes, systems and business models from each company.”
Combes also noted that T-Mobile last week hired Sunit Patel, CenturyLink’s CTO, to lead the company’s merger and integration strategy.
That hire, noted the analysts at Wells Fargo, likely points to the fact that Patel and others “must be feeling VERY confident the Sprint bird is very much in hand (integration and synergy realization as well as capital market expertise are two shining stars on Patel’s CV) and … it could be closer than many think.”
However, in his email to employees, Sprint’s Combes noted that “until [the T-Mobile merger] closing—a decision is expected sometime in the first half of 2019—we must continue to compete as a stand-alone company.”
T-Mobile and Sprint reached a merger agreement in April, and have been working to obtain approval from the FCC and other government agencies for the transaction. Analysts have noted that the deal appears headed for approval, albeit with potential conditions and divestitures. Indeed, the head of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division recently noted the agency may work to speed up the merger review process.