Sol Trujillo, a former executive of US West, Orange and Telstra, has approached private-equity firms including Blackstone and KKR about bidding for all or part of Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Trujillo has been met with skepticism from private-equity firms that have had preliminary discussions concerning the buyout, due to the size and cost of financing of the proposal for a unit that may now be worth USD 30 billion. T-Mobile has closed its call centres and cut jobs to reduce costs after its USD 39 billion sale to AT&T failed last year because regulators opposed the combination. Deutsche Telekom remains open to a full or partial sale of its US division and would use the money to invest in European assets including mobile business in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, according to the news agency's sources. Trujillo has also sought private-equity interest in a takeover of Sprint Nextel.
