SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son said yesterday he was confident his company's acquisition of Sprint Nextel will be completed in early July after rival bidder Dish Network bowed out.

SoftBank, a Japanese mobile network operator, is trying to push through the largest overseas acquisition by a Japanese company in history. Sprint, the third-largest US mobile service provider, is also working with SoftBank to buy out small wireless company Clearwire.

Dish has abandoned efforts to buy Sprint. It said in a regulatory filing that it was returning to bondholders the $2.6 billion in debt it had raised to fund the proposed acquisition.

Mr Son, SoftBank’s billionaire founder, told an annual shareholders meeting attended by more than 2,000 that his ambition would not end with closing the Sprint deal. – (Reuters)