Posts tagged expansion

Sprint Nextel on Tuesday agreed to pump $1.176 billion into Clearwire Corp., the public company building out the fourth-generation WiMax wireless network that Sprint is counting on to boost its own business.

Sprint’s partners in Clearwire, excluding Google Inc., will inject an additional $388 million to provide $1.564 billion for expanding the WiMax network. The money will start flowing Friday in a series of three installments, according to Clearwire’s public notice.

In the deal, Sprint’s 51.1 percent majority stake in Clearwire will grow to 56.6 percent.

Clearwire aims to reach more than 80 markets with more than 120 million people by the end of next year.

The investment came a day after Overland Park-based Sprint announced up to 2,500 layoffs systemwide, including an unspecified number here. The job cuts, to occur mostly by year-end, are expected to save the nation’s third-largest wireless company $350 million annually.

Shares in Sprint fell 19 cents to $3.24. Clearwire stock was up 45 cents to $7.25.

Clearwire on Tuesday also reported a quarterly loss of $82.4 million, or 43 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $72.7 million, or 45 cents a share. Revenue grew 13 percent to $68.8 million.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of 43 cents on revenue of $67 million.

Subscriber count climbed 18 percent, to 555,000, as net additions surged to 44,000 from 8,000 a year earlier.

Source: Kansascity.com