Sprint is preparing to make an offer to buy T-Mobile, Bloomberg reports.
Softbank, which owns most of Sprint, will make the offer some time in June or July, according the report. Sprint is also said to be looking to replace its CEO, Dan Hesse, and T-Mobile's CEO John Legere is the leading candidate.
Sprint has had a rough year or so. In its earnings report for the first quarter of 2014, Sprint said it lost 231,000 postpaid subscribers and 364,000 prepaid subscribers. Meanwhile, rivals like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are either growing or maintaining their subscriber bases.
T-Mobile has seen a nice turnaround since Legere took over in late 2012. It stopped bleeding subscribers, finally started selling the iPhone, and made some enticing moves to get people to switch to its cheaper plans.
But while Legere spends a lot of his time taking shots at AT&T, one industry insider recently told Business Insider that it's Sprint that has really been "taking it on the chin" due to T-Mobile's attempts to lure subscribers away from rivals.
Even if Softbank does end up making an offer for T-Mobile, the deal isn't guaranteed to go through. There's a lot of legal hurdles the two carriers would have to go through with the Justice Department and the FCC to make sure the merger wouldn't hurt competition in the wireless business. In 2011, AT&T attempted to buy T-Mobile, but the Justice Department quashed the deal.
A representative for T-Mobile declined to comment. A representative for Sprint was not immediately available to comment.