This is a sure-fire sign that the telecom industry is headed for another wave of consolidation.
Jack Grubman, Wall Street’s top telecom analyst before he was banned for life from the securities industry in 2002, was spotted last week at an invitation-only event for Sprint.
The 60-year-old Grubman was among a handful analysts that sat for a commercial shoot featuring Pharrell Williams singing his hit “Happy.”
Grubman’s career on Wall Street is long over, but he still acts as a consultant to the telecommunications industry through his firm Magee Group.
Sprint, which is 80 percent owned by Japan’s SoftBank, is expected to make a formal bid for T-Mobile later this summer. Sprint and Magee did not return calls seeking comment.
Grubman, who earned an estimated $20 million a year as a Citigroup star, made bullish calls in the late 1990s that helped fuel the telecom boom and bust.
Grubman coughed up $15 million and agreed to a lifetime ban to settle allegations that he put out misleading research in order to win lucrative underwriting fees for the bank.
Grubman, whose clunkers included WorldCom and Winstar Communications, neither admitted nor denied the allegations.