Deutsche Telekom Considers Full Merger with T-Mobile US

According to a report from Bloomberg, Deutsche Telekom and its US subsidiary T-Mobile US are discussing the establishment of a new holding company to acquire shares of both operators in a stock-swap deal. If the transaction is successful, the combined entity would have a market value of approximately $380 billion.

This would become the largest public market merger and acquisition deal in history, surpassing the two historic transactions completed around the millennium—America Online's acquisition of Time Warner for about $186 billion and Vodafone's acquisition of Mannesmann on a similar scale—effectively doubling the global M&A record.

The transatlantic M&A wave is at its peak in recent years. Bloomberg data shows that the scale of US-Europe cross-border M&A deals in 2026 has soared by more than 140% compared to the same period last year, reaching about $165 billion, with the first quarter setting the second-highest quarterly record for such transactions. Large cross-border deals such as Unilever's merger with McCormick for $44 billion in the food business, Schroders being acquired by Nuveen for £9.9 billion, and Banco Santander's acquisition of Webster Financial for $12 billion have taken place this year in succession.

Jay Hofmann, head of North American M&A at JPMorgan, recently pointed out that companies generally believe that the current moment is an opportunity to advance "industry-defining" mergers and acquisitions, even though market uncertainty and volatility remain high.

The idea of a merger between Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile has been discussed intermittently for many years. The resumption of talks this time reflects a fundamental change in the assessment of the regulatory environment and market window by the boards of both companies—this deal was long considered too aggressive to pass regulatory scrutiny.