Sprint Corp. on Wednesday confirmed plans to replace Chief
Executive Dan Hesse with Marcelo Claure, a billionaire entrepreneur
who is untested as a wireless operator.
The move is effective Aug. 11 and comes amid a report by The
Wall Street Journal that the telecom operator will end its pursuit
of T-Mobile US Inc. in the face of stiff opposition from
regulators.
The T-Mobile decision, made at a Sprint board meeting Tuesday,
would put an end to a deal that would have valued T-Mobile at $32
billion and created a more muscular rival to market leaders Verizon
Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.
Mr. Claure, a Bolivian soccer fan, built mobile phone
distributor Brightstar Corp. into a company with more than $10
billion in revenue and a presence in more than 50 countries.
SoftBank bought control of Brightstar in January to give it more
clout with makers of mobile phones and put Mr. Claure on Sprint's
board. He will have his work cut out for him.
Since buying control of Sprint, Masayoshi Son has found it more
difficult than he anticipated to change the stodgy culture of a
telecom company based in Overland Park, Kansas, that he said had a
"loser" mentality. Mr. Son opened an office in San Carlos, Calif.
and brought SoftBank engineers from Japan to help guide the
turnaround.
His brash personality rubbed some Sprint executives the wrong
way, however, and there has been a series of departures in the
sales, marketing and network departments.
"Masa and I are very different and we don't always agree," wrote
Mr. Hesse in an email to the Journal earlier this year, using Mr.
Son's nickname. "But we respect each other a great deal and we
communicate that respect to one another regularly."
Meanwhile, T-Mobile continues to consider alternatives for its
future. T-Mobile on Tuesday denied Iliad's request for access to
its books after determining that the proposed $15 billion bid
wasn't strong enough, people familiar with the matter said.
Gillian Tan and Thomas Gryta contributed to this article.
Write to Ryan Knutson at ryan.knutson@wsj.com and Dana Mattioli
at dana.mattioli@wsj.com
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