Sprint Abandons Bid For T-Mobile: Reports

Sprint has scrapped its $32 billion attempt to tie the knot with T-Mobile after determining that the regulatory hurdles were too high, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The paper said Sprint, whose board decided to end its pursuit of the rival mobile carrier earlier in the day, will also replace CEO Dan Hesse, who joined Sprint in 2007 following a stint as chairman and CEO of Embarq Corp.  (now part of CenturyLink).

Re/Code and Bloomberg reported that Sprint is expected to name Marcelo Claure, a Sprint board member and chief of Brightstar, as Hesse’s successor as soon as Wednesday. Japan-based SoftBank, which controls Sprint,  nabbed a majority stake in Brightstar, a wireless distributor, in January  2013.

T-Mobile rejected a surprise $15 billion bid from French operator Iliad, deeming it “dead on arrival,” according to the WSJ. 

Dish chairman Charlie Ergen, who has previously had eyes for Sprint, has made it clear that he would be interested in making a play for T-Mobile if its deal with Sprint fell through.