T-Mobile considers buying Ryan Reynolds’s Mint Mobile

T-Mobile US Inc. is considering an acquisition of Mint Mobile, the budget wireless provider backed by actor Ryan Reynolds, according to people familiar with the matter.

The second-largest US mobile service provider has been in talks with Mint Mobile, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. No final decision has been made and closely held Mint Mobile could opt to remain independent or sell to another party, the people added.

Reynolds owns about one-fourth of the company, one of the people said.

A representative for T-Mobile declined to comment. Representatives for Mint Mobile didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mint Mobile offers budget cell phone plans on the T-Mobile network starting at $15 per month, according to its website. The company’s plans are designed so that people don’t pay for more bandwidth than they need, letting them start with a three-month period and then make adjustments after that.

Reynolds, star of the Deadpool action-hero franchise, became a part-owner of Mint Mobile in 2019. As the company’s main pitchman, he’s starred in Mint Mobile’s TV ads and pushed the company heavily to his 21 million Twitter and 47 million Instagram followers. A liquor company co-owned by Reynolds sold some of his liquor company’s brands to Diageo Plc in 2020 in a $610 million deal.

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Thanks to a trove of midband airwaves acquired with the takeover of Sprint Corp. in 2020, T-Mobile gained about a one-year lead in 5G service on rivals AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. Bloomberg