Shares in telecoms titan Charter Communications Inc dialled up around 7% in pre-market New York deals as it emerged it had poured cold water on plans for a merger between it and Sprint Corp (NYSE:S).
Charter shares surged in pre-market, while Sprint shares were up a tad - 0.49%.
Charter stock jumps 7% on SoftBank reportedly planning a direct bid https://t.co/EfYfjIElCw
— Vish Com LLC (@GabeyPaton) July 31, 2017
It is a plan that Sprint's majority owner - Japanese giant SoftBank Group Corp is keen to see it go through.
READ: Charter Communications tops expectations
On Sunday, reports emerged that SoftBank was considering making an acquisition offer for Charter, which has a market cap of US$101bn as early as this week.
But Charter Communications was quick to say the same day that it was not interested in acquiring the US wireless carrier giant.
A merger of the two titans - Charter and Sprint would create a telecomms behemoth, creating a so-called one-stop shop for customers looking for internet and mobile phone services.
Sprint's market cap is US$32.8bn but it also has a similar amount in debt.
A Charter bid would give SoftBank majority control and would require raising billions of new debt and could push SoftBank to leverage some of its other assets, including its 29.5% stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NASDAQ:BABA) and its 43% stake in Yahoo Japan Corp.