T-Mobile to go private with the Sole True Hero!
Fierce Wireless is reporting that there is a private equity bid in the works to buy T-Mobile led by none other than my least favourite telecom executive, Mr Sol Trujillo.
As an Australian I have had some experience with Sol Trujillo - he was CEO of our local incumbent teleco - Telstra.
At first Sol looked to be a great salesman - but he systematically undermined any political and eventually customer goodwill with Telstra. He then took a me-against-the-world view as the business crumbled around him. That was a head-in-the-sand display that matches Microsoft's original dismissal of iPhones as laughable.
Sol Trujillo eventually asserted that his problems were caused by Australian racism - but they were not. They were caused by his personal intransigence and his tone deafness. The wags took to calling him the Sole True Hero simply because he could not build any coalition of support around his positions.
When he left the Prime Minister welcomed the news with a single word: adios. That was asserted as proof of Australian racism - and maybe it is indicative of such. However telecoms are ultimately a regulated business and an executive who makes a populace and a Prime Minister so angry that that is reasonable response has not succeeded as a teleco exec.
This is a warning to the capital markets. Anyone seriously contemplating backing that bid should look at Sol Trujillo's record at Telstra in Australia.
That record is subject of a previous blog post.
John