* To raise debt for general corporate purposes
* Had set year-end as funding deadline
* Also nominates three board members
* Clearwire shares fall 0.7 pct in early trade
NEW YORK, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Clearwire Corp (CLWR.O) announced plans to sell more than $1.1 billion in a debt offering after months of negotiations aimed at coming up with new funding.
The wireless service provider, which is majority owned by Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N), had said early last month that there was doubt it could continue as a going concern if it did not raise new financing.
Other options Clearwire considered for funding included equity investments from Sprint or T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE) or a sale of wireless spectrum.
Clearwire, which also nominated three new directors for its board, did not say in its statement on Thursday if those other options were still in the cards.
Some analysts estimate that the company, which had set itself a deadline to raise new funding by year-end, could still need another $3 billion in coming years to complete a high-speed wireless network it is building.
It said that the new debt would come in the form of an offer of $175 million in first-priority senior secured notes due 2015, $500.0 million of second-priority secured notes due 2017 and $500.0 million of exchangeable notes due 2040.
It said it would also grant the initial purchasers of the exchangeable notes an option to purchase up to an additional $100.0 million of exchangeable notes.
Its shares fell 0.7 percent to $6.77 in premarket trade after closing at $6.82 on Nasdaq. (Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
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