A report in the U.K.’s Sunday Telegraph that Deutsche Telekom AG is considering buying Sprint Nextel sent the U.S. carrier’s stock surging on Monday, up 11% this afternoon. Citing unnamed sources, the article said the company could make a bid for Sprint in the next few weeks.
The merger would give fourth-ranked carrier T-Mobile and third-largest Sprint a combined 78 million U.S. mobile customers and position the new entity as a more formidable competitor to Verizon Wireless and AT&T. At least one analyst welcomed the deal as beneficial to the entire …