Sprint plans to push forward with a bid for T-Mobile after meeting with banks last month to make debt arrangements for that offer, people with knowledge of the situation said. Sprint Chief Financial Officer Joe Euteneuer and Treasurer Greg Block met with six banks to ensure the lenders would be ready with financing structures when Sprint decides to pursue a takeover, said three of the people, asking not to named because the discussions are private. T-Mobile ended trading yesterday with a market value of about $23.5 billion. Masayoshi Son, chief executive officer of SoftBank, which owns about 80 percent of Sprint, is expected to make a formal bid in June or July, one of the people said. While regulators have expressed concerns about a combination of the third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers in the U.S., Son and his advisers are hoping to convince the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice about the long-term health of the industry.

“Son doesn’t give up,” said Tomoaki Kawasaki, an analyst at Iwai Cosmo Holdings Inc. in Tokyo. “An acquisition of T-Mobile would increase Sprint’s ability to compete in the U.S. by expanding scale and reducing costs.”

Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

A T-Mobile retail store in Torrance, California.

T-Mobile said today that it added 1.3 million new monthly subscribers in the first quarter, more than AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. combined. Sprint had a net loss of monthly subscribers in the quarter.

T-Mobile rose 8.7 percent to $31.83 as of 9:55 a.m. in New York today. Sprint gained 4.8 percent to $8.91. SoftBank rose 1.7 percent to 7,717 yen in Tokyo trading earlier.

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