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The Thesis
Son acquired Sprint and spent seven years pushing for a merger with T-Mobile, enduring regulatory rejection and billions in losses before the merger finally closed and created a telecom powerhouse.
The Story
In 2013, Masayoshi Son's SoftBank acquired Sprint for $21.6 billion, making it the largest foreign acquisition of a US company by a Japanese firm. Sprint was a distant third in US wireless, losing money and subscribers. Son's thesis was bold: merge Sprint with T-Mobile to create a strong third competitor to AT&T and Verizon. The first merger attempt was blocked by regulators in 2014.
Son persisted for six more years, burning through billions to keep Sprint viable while continuing to push for the merger. In 2020, the Sprint-T-Mobile merger finally closed. The combined company, led by T-Mobile's management, became a formidable competitor and T-Mobile's stock surged. SoftBank ultimately sold its stake for a substantial profit, and the merger created a US telecom giant worth hundreds of billions. Son's seven-year persistence through rejection, losses, and skepticism demonstrated that some of the greatest investments require not just vision but extraordinary patience and stubbornness.
Key Insight
Great deals sometimes take years of persistence through rejection — the willingness to keep fighting for your thesis when others have given up is itself a competitive advantage.
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See how Glen Bradford applies these principles to his own investing. Long Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac junior preferred — conviction meets patience.