TLDR
- Elliott Investment Management has built a stake in Deutsche Telekom and is pushing the company to drop merger plans with T-Mobile US
- T-Mobile US (TMUS) closed up 2.82% at $187.30 on Wednesday following the Bloomberg report
- Deutsche Telekom stock rose 1.5% on Thursday, topping Germany’s blue-chip index
- Elliott wants Deutsche Telekom to pursue larger share buybacks instead of a full merger
- Deutsche Telekom already has a commitment to buy back up to €5 billion in stock this year
Elliott Investment Management has built a stake in Deutsche Telekom and is pushing the company to scrap its planned merger with T-Mobile US, Bloomberg reported. The news sent T-Mobile US stock up 2.82% to $187.30 on Wednesday, while Deutsche Telekom opened 1.5% higher in Frankfurt on Thursday.
Elliott wants Deutsche Telekom to walk away from a potential full combination with T-Mobile US and instead return more cash to investors through bigger share buybacks.
Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges has been pushing for a full merger with T-Mobile US since at least April 2026. The German carrier holds roughly a 53% stake in the U.S. wireless operator. A full merger would have created the world’s largest wireless operator by market value.
The deal was already showing cracks before Elliott’s move. A Semafor report in late July said T-Mobile US executives had told Deutsche Telekom they no longer supported the roughly $300 billion merger, citing shareholder concerns and regulatory risk.
U.S. regulators were widely expected to require that T-Mobile revenue stay invested domestically as a condition of approval, which would have complicated the deal’s rationale.
Elliott Targets the Merger Overhang
J.P. Morgan analyst Akhil Dattani said the speculation around activist involvement alone was enough to move the stock. He described Deutsche Telekom as “extremely cheap” relative to its double-digit earnings-per-share growth, weighed down by what he called “a unique cocktail of strategic overhangs.”
“Activism could force DT to address this debate, either through admitting their merger interest and in turn outlining the deal logic, or by formally ruling out a transaction,” Dattani said. He rates the stock “overweight.”
Deutsche Telekom has already committed to buying back up to €5 billion ($5.8 billion), roughly 4% of its stock, this year. Dattani said increasing that programme would be financially helpful but would not by itself clear the strategic uncertainty hanging over the stock.
What a Full Re-Rating Would Take
Dattani said a full re-rating of Deutsche Telekom would likely require the company to either walk away from the T-Mobile deal entirely or justify it clearly to investors. It would also need to address a separate set of U.S.-related concerns, including satellite competition, wireless market dynamics, a perceived weak fibre footprint, and a heavy slate of upcoming spectrum auctions.
Deutsche Telekom’s stock has fallen roughly 9% in Frankfurt over the past 12 months, giving the company a market value of around €138 billion ($160 billion).
Elliott’s exact stake size has not been disclosed. Under German securities rules, investors must disclose a position once it reaches or exceeds 3% of a company’s stock. A regulatory filing could be the first public confirmation of how large Elliott’s holding actually is.
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