Sprint Nextel Corp. bondholders are at odds with shareholders from Leon Cooperman to John Paulson who've praised a takeover bid from Dish Network Corp. that may amplify the largest junk issuer's debt load by 31 percent.
Average yields for Sprint's $20 billion of bonds, which had plunged 1.33 percentage points to 4.64 percent since the third-largest U.S. mobile-phone company said in October it may receive a "substantial" investment from Softbank Corp., have jumped 0.31 percentage point this week following Dish's unsolicited offer. That contrasts with a 15 percent stock surge for Sprint.
While Cooperman's Omega Advisors Inc. and Paulson & Co. say the $25.5 billion bid by Charlie Ergen's Dish offers more value than a $20 billion deal endorsed by Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint's board that would give Softbank a 70 percent stake, the new proposal threatens to boost leverage at a company that already has more than twice the debt relative to earnings as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.
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