After delaying a vote on AT&T’s proposed $1.2 billion takeover of Leap Wireless, Leap shareholders met yesterday and resoundingly approved the deal.
Leap—which operates as Cricket Wireless—issued a release stating that more than 99 percent of the votes cast were in favor of the proposed merger agreement and 78 percent of the votes were in favor of the advisory proposal regarding executive compensation.
The deal still has some regulatory hurdles to clear in gaining approval from both the FCC and the Department of Justice. AT&T CFO John Stephens last week indicated during his company’s third-quarter earnings call that AT&T expects to fully close the deal by the first quarter of 2014.
AT&T’s takeover bid was announced by in July and Leap shareholders were originally scheduled to vote on it last week. That vote was delayed in order for Leap to file clarifications to some cash flow classification errors that occurred in previous quarters’ financial reporting.
As part of the deal, AT&T will buy Leap’s stock, network and retail stores as well as acquire Leap’s unused spectrum that covers 41 million people.