No U.S. DOJ Objection to MetroPCS, T-Mobile Deal

FRANKFURT--The U.S. Department of Justice has no objections to the merger between Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE.XE) subsidiary T-Mobile USA and mobile operator MetroPCS Communications Inc. (PCS), said the German telecom group Wednesday.

"Deutsche Telekom has reached an important staging post at the approval process of the merger of its subsidiary T- Mobile USA and MetroPCS," said Deutsche Telekom in a press release.

The waiting period required by the U.S. antitrust laws has passed without objection from the DOJ, the regulator that governs the process, the group said.

Approvals from the Federal Communications Commission, the Committee on Foreign Investment and MetroPCS shareholders are now the remaining hurdles for the merger, said the group. MetroPCS shareholders are set to vote on the merger on April 12.

Deutsche Telekom hopes to solve T-Mobile USA's lack of scale issues by merging it with MetroPCS, thus combining the fourth and fifth-largest mobile communications providers in the U.S. The transaction is structured as a reverse merger, meaning the U.S. unit will merge into the already-public structure of MetroPCS, with Deutsche Telekom getting 76% of the company.

Write to Friedrich Geiger at friedrich.geiger@dowjones.com

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