T-Mobile’s owner collected $4 billion when AT&T failed to buy it.
In March 2011 AT&T agreed to buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. Its owner, Deutsche Telekom, feared regulators would say no and pushed AT&T to promise $3 billion in cash and $1 billion of airwaves if the deal fell through. The Justice Department sued to block it, and that December AT&T gave up and paid.
T-Mobile on Brandseum