Sprint, Nextel Partners settle on purchase price

Nextel Partners and Sprint have finally agreed on a price to bring Nextel’s secondary market subsidiary completely into the Sprint fold. The companies settled on a put price of $28.50 per share of Nextel Partners stock, resulting in a price tag of $6 billion for Sprint to acquire the 68% of the company it doesn’t already own.

Nextel Partners runs the Nextel iDEN networks in mid-sized and rural markets in 31 states. Ever since Sprint acquired Nextel this summer, the mega-carrier and Nextel Partners have been squabbling over a fair price for the independently run subsidiary.

Sprint has filed two lawsuits against Nextel Partners accusing it of artificially inflating its stock price in order to get a better deal out of Sprint. But company officials said two independent appraisers, Morgan Stanley and Lazard, settled the dispute, coming up with an average valuation of $9.2 billion for the entire company. The put price is now final and binding unless a significant number of Nextel Partners shareholders challenge the deal by Jan. 9. Sprint expects the deal to close the second quarter of 2006.