Sprint's Merger Talks With T-Mobile Are Said to Be in Peril

The Reuters source could not confirm this, and sources close to T-Mobile said they were unaware of any such decision by SoftBank.

"Whether or not those issues on governance rise to the level of meaning the deal is off, is not clear", he added.

Sprint reportedly plans to make a significant investment in its network now that merger talks have stalled. T-Mo is also a little less bad, down $1.66, or 2.6%, at $61.30. Nikkei Asian Review is reporting that SoftBank, the Japanese telecom giant that owns Sprint, has chose to pull out of the deal "amid a failure to agree on ownership of the combined entity". In the third quarter ending September 30, she noted, Sprint reported a 10% increase in gross adds (a key customer metric), best of any carrier and far better than T-Mobile's gross loss of 6.5% in the period. Last month, it was revealed that the two companies were (again) in talks of a merger, with T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom having majority ownership of the new carrier. Sprint shares dropped as much as 9% during morning trading, while T-Mobile stocks were down 5% at one point.

SoftBank had hoped to combine the two carriers to allow them to better compete against USA industry leaders Verizon and AT&T. Some at SoftBank were initially amenable as long as the Japanese company retained some influence.

A few weeks later, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said he was open to "various forms of consolidation" when asked about a potential merger with Sprint and SoftBank under the Trump administration.