On the evening of April 7th, Straight Path was valued at $455 million dollars. On Monday morning, April 10th, AT&T announced that it would buy Straight Path Communications for $1.6 billion. The attraction? The company is one of the largest owners of 28 GHz and 39 GHz millimeter wave spectrum. These airwaves will be used by carriers building out their next-generation 5G network.
The day of AT&T's announcement, the stock soared from $36.48 to $89.75, still below AT&T's $95.63 per share offer. Two weeks later, a mystery bidder (rumored to be Verizon) topped AT&T with a bid of $1.8 billion for Straight Path. That deal worked out to a price of $104.64 a share. But on Wednesday, the mystery bidder revised its offer higher to $135.96 per share, or $2.3 billion.
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While Verizon has not publicly confirmed that it is the mystery bidder, sources say that it was planning on topping AT&T's original offer. Still, it is not known for sure whether Big Red is the company that just raised its bid yesterday. Under the terms of AT&T's original signed deal, it now has three business days to put together a new deal for Straight Path that would top the proposal from the mystery bidder. If AT&T decides to walk away, it will receive a $38 million break up fee.
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Straight Path is now trading at $164.72 which gives it a market value over $2 billion dollars. The value of the company has tripled in the last month. We don't know yet who will end up with Straight Path, but this M&A battle does indicate how valuable millimeter wave spectrum is to carriers right now.
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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.
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