Sprint Stock Is Soaring; Possible Merger In The Works?

While the odds of the AT&T Inc. T–Time Warner Inc TWX merger are looking bleak due to the Trump victory, telecom company Sprint Corp S is emerging as a big winner from Tuesday’s election.

Sprint, Management And Mergers

Sprint has provided a compelling comeback story this year, with new marketing initiatives and strong leadership from CEO Marcelo Claure. The wireless provider's shares are up nearly 12 percent on Wednesday, with renewed hopes that a potential merger with T-Mobile US IncTMUS could happen.

Old Deal's Vigor Revived?

In 2014, Sprint tried to acquire T-Mobile, but was rejected by the Obama administration due to antitrust concerns. With a new administration in place, the deal is looking much more likely to go thru, especially as both Claure and SoftBank Group Corp SFTBF CEO Masayoshi Son (Sprint's majority owner) have both expressed interest in a merger.

“We’ve always said that we were interested, It would be nice to combine both companies to give us scale. Today that is a wish,” Claure told Fortune earlier this fall.

Trump, Media And Telecom

While the Trump administration has been particularly tough on media consolidation, opposing the proposed AT&T–Time Warner deal, telecom is a different story, however. The new administration has shown signs of a more tolerant approach to the industry.

With T-Mobile and Sprint making significant strides to take share away from the incumbent Nos. 1 and 2 providers Verizon Communications Inc. VZ and AT&T, a possible merger between Sprint and T-Mobile would really shake things up in the industry.

At Last Check ...

• AT&T was up 1.31 percent at $37.47.
• Sprint was up 12.68 percent at $7.07.
• Time Warner was down 1 percent at $86.99.
• T-Mobile was up 3.73 percent at $52.34.
• Verizon was up 0.34 percent at $47.81.