France's Iliad makes buyout offer for T-Mobile USA: source

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Thursday that Iliad had made the surprise offer to T-Mobile's board less than a week ago and was working with several banks to secure financing. (http://on.wsj.com/1o8WRKT)

Japan's SoftBank Corp <9984.T>, which controls Sprint, and T-Mobile's 67-percent owner Deutsche Telekom AG have agreed to broad terms of a deal, under which Sprint would pay about $40 per share, valuing T-Mobile at nearly $32 billion, Reuters reported in early June.

That merger is not expected to occur before September, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. T-Mobile and Iliad did not immediately respond to requests for comment. "The opportunity for a transaction that brings capital and spectrum would be highly beneficial," T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere said on CNBC earlier on Thursday.

"The opportunity to bring Sprint and T-Mobile together is one. But there are many different ways to do this and we will consider all of them," he said. T-Mobile shares were up 5 percent at $32.50 in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Sprint shares were down 3 percent at $7.51.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan in San Francisco, Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore, Marina Lopes in New York and Leila Abboud in Paris; Editing by Ted Kerr)