Troubled 4G wireless provider Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR) can't seem to get things to go its way nowadays. The company recently reported lackluster earnings, with red continuing to be the color theme, leading to a mean sell-off. Clearwire then warned that it might need to raise additional capital, despite the fact that it had already received $1 billion in the past few months.
The latest gloomy development is that search giant Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has now disclosed that it intends to bid farewell to its 6.5% stake in the company, taking more than a 90% haircut on the investment. Way back in 2008, Google had put in a $500 million investment and is now hoping to recoup just $47.1 million of that.
Big G is planning on selling its 29.4 million shares for the bargain price of $1.60 to other Clearwire investors, a substantial discount to yesterday's closing price $2.27, and then offer the shares to the broader market if needed.
There's no word on whether some of Clearwire's other big investors will follow suit, which includes bigwigs like Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), and Comcast, and of course Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S).
Intel says it won't increase its stake, which includes Class A and B shares, and the chip king has already written down the value of its 65.6 million B shares to zilch, while it's still hanging on to 28.4 million A shares. At the end of last year, Comcast was sitting on 88.5 million B shares, while Time Warner Cable was the proud owner of 46.4 million of them.
As much as Sprint had hoped to get cozy with LightSquared for its 4G LTE needs, the FCC made short work of that last week. Like it or not, Sprint, it looks like you're stuck in a loveless marriage with Clearwire, while Google is free to galavant about, although it does have hopes of settling down with Motorola Mobility someday soon.
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