HispanicBusiness

Four minority shareholders with 127.4 million of Clearwire Corp.'s shares said they agreed to work together to seek a better deal for the wireless service provider, which agreed to be sold to majority owner Sprint Nextel Corp.

Mount Kellett, Highside Capital Management, Glenview Capital Management and Chesapeake Partners Management Co. agreed on Wednesday [May 1] to band together to talk with Sprint, Dish Network Corp. and other interested parties, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday [May 3].

The shareholders said they were unanimous in their belief that Sprint's December offer to buy Clearwire for $2.97 per share was too low.

Clearwire shares were up 3.4 percent at $3.39 on Nasdaq after the news.

Clearwire and Sprint declined to comment. Dish was not immediately available for comment.

The investors' efforts come weeks before a May 21 meeting Clearwire scheduled for shareholders to vote on the December agreement to with Sprint, which already owns more than 50 percent of Clearwire. The deal would need approval from a majority of the minority shareholders.

Shareholders had said they were not happy with the Sprint agreement, especially after satellite TV provider Dish announced a $3.30-per-share counter-offer for the company in January and then made a bid for all of Sprint itself in April.

Since then, Verizon Communications Inc. said it offered to buy spectrum from Clearwire after the smaller company announced in a regulatory filing that it had received a bid for $1 billion to $1.5 billion worth of spectrum.

Another activist investor, Crest Financial, has already been asking shareholders for support in its proxy battle against the Sprint deal.

Also last month, Aurelius Capital Management offered Clearwire $80 million in financing as an alternative to Sprint Nextel's convertible financing offer.