France's Iliad challenges Sprint for control of T-Mobile

By Soyoung Kim and Leila Abboud PARIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) - French telecommunications company Iliad SA ILD.PA has made a surprise offer for T-Mobile US Inc TMUS.N, setting up a potential bidding war with Sprint Corp S.N, the U.S. mobile carrier now controlled by Japan's Softbank Corp 9984.T. The approach will further shake up a U.S. media and telecoms market already in tumult as a series of U.S. cable and cellular operators have bid for rivals to cut costs amid slowing growth. The market and its relatively healthy margins remain alluring to some foreign operators like Softbank and Iliad, however. Iliad, which has shaken up the French mobile and broadband market in the past decade with its cheap, pared-down subscriber plans, bid $15 billion in cash for 56.6 percent of T-Mobile US at $33 per share, it said in a statement on Thursday. The Paris-based company said its offer for the fourth-largest U.S. carrier values all of T-Mobile at $36.20 per share, a premium of 42 percent to the pre-announcement share price, once expected cost savings of $10 billion were taken into account.

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