Crest Financial Limited, the largest Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) shareholder not affiliated with Sprint Nextel (S +0.00%), has proposed in a letter to Clearwire's board a financing arrangement "superior to the financing provided by Sprint Nextel Corporation," one that would allow the company to explore merger options other than Sprint's offer, according to a Crest announcement.
Crest would like Clearwire instead to consider selling its excess spectrum to DISH Network (DISH +0.00%) rather than give it up to Sprint for what Crest feels is less than what that spectrum is worth.
Crest's offer of $240 million in convertible debt, along with the $160 million in financing Clearwire has already received from Sprint, would give Clearwire enough capital to complete its planned build-out of 2,000 LTE sites plus an additional 2,133 LTE sites for its network, according to Crest.