The chairman of US telco Clearwire, Craig McCaw, has resigned, according to media reports.
Clearwire did not reply to requests for information on the reasons for McCaw’s departure. He had held the position of chairman since November 2008.
According to…
The chairman of US telco Clearwire, Craig McCaw, has resigned, according to media reports.
Clearwire did not reply to requests for information on the reasons for McCaw’s departure. He had held the position of chairman since November 2008.
According to Bloomberg, McCaw was nominated to the position of chairman by Eagle River Holdings, which holds a 4% stake in Clearwire.
Eagle River retains the right to nominate a new director to replace McCaw, and reportedly plans to nominate Ben Wolff. Wolff was a co-founder of Clearwire and held several roles, including co-chairman, until March 2009. He is now CEO of satco ICO Global Communication Holdings.
Clearwire has been attempting to roll out a 4G WiMAX service in the US, but has been meeting tough competition from rivals rolling out LTE, another 4G technology.
In December, Clearwire completed a bond offering in order to finance the deployment of its WiMAX network. A report from the Times of India said that Clearwire had raised US$1.4bn in the offering, which is significantly more than the figures around US$1.1bn that were originally reported.
Nonetheless, it is believed that Clearwire will require billions more to continue the deployment.
Sprint declined to exercise its pre-emptive rights to participate in Clearwire’s debt offering. The deadline for Sprint to act was January 2.
Sprint Nextel owns a 54% stake in the company, while other investors include Bright House Networks, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Google and Intel.
