March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Sprint Corp., the fourth-biggest U.S.
mobile-telephone company, may sell its 6,000 transmission towers, which are
valued at about $1.5 billion, as the carrier seeks to reduce debt, people
familiar with the matter said.

Sprint has hired Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. for advice,
said one person, who asked not to be named. A transaction isn't imminent,
and the Overland Park, Kansas-based company may decide to keep the towers,
the people said.

A tower sale would give Sprint cash to eliminate debt as sales growth
slows. Sprint, which has said revenue will rise 2 percent to 3 percent this
year, wants to cut payments on the $17.4 billion of debt it had as of
December. At BBB- and Baa3, Sprint has the lowest investment-grade credit
ratings from Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service.

Selling assets ``is a good thing for a company that has a low growth
rate and could use cash for other purposes,'' said Kurt Funderburg, an
analyst at Harris Associates LP, which owned 21.3 million shares of Sprint's
long-distance unit in December.

Towers have previously changed hands at between $200,000 and $250,000
each, said Funderburg. Chicago-based Harris has about $43 billion under
management.

``We don't comment on rumors or speculation,'' Sprint spokesman Bill
White said. Citigroup spokesman Duncan King and Bank of America spokeswoman
Tara Burke declined to comment.

Possible Buyers

Shares that track Sprint's PCS Group wireless unit slipped 1 cent to
$9.52 at 12:30 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Shares
that track Sprint's local-phone and long-distance operations rose 4 cents to
$18.99.

Sprint said this week that it plans to eliminate the wireless shares,
which were created in 1998. Starting April 23, the company's operations will
be represented by a single stock, which now trades under the FON symbol.

Possible buyers of Sprint's towers include private-equity firms and
tower operators such as American Tower Corp., analysts including Ned Zachar
of Thomas Weisel Partners LLC said. American Tower spokeswoman Anne Alter
said the company doesn't comment on potential acquisitions.

Sprint, also the third-biggest U.S. long-distance company by sales,
has said at least since 2000 that it might sell towers. The company's
network consists of about 6,000 towers it owns and other towers it rents.
Sprint also leases space on some of its towers to other carriers.

Tower Shares Soar

Sprint trimmed borrowings by $2.9 billion last year after selling its
yellow-pages business to R.H. Donnelley Corp. for $2.23 billion.

The company's 8 3/8 percent notes maturing in 2012 rose to $1,217 per
$1,000 face amount, from $1,199 yesterday, pushing down the yield to 5.1
percent from 5.3 percent, according to Trace, the bond-price service of the
National Association of Securities Dealers.

Shares of companies that own and operate wireless towers have soared
in the past year as the slowdown in U.S. wireless sales proved to be less
than some analysts expected. American Tower, Crown Castle International
Corp. and SpectraSite Inc. have each more than doubled in value.

A sale of Sprint's towers would fit into Chief Executive Officer Gary
Forsee's strategy to pare costs by outsourcing. Sprint last month said it
would move some customer-service operations to International Business
Machines Corp. Sprint said the move would lower expenses by $550 million
over three years.

`More Open'

Under Forsee, who took over as CEO a year ago, Sprint is ``more open
to outsourcing-type initiatives than they were before,'' Thomas Weisel's
Zachar said.

A tower sale also would give Sprint funds to improve its wireless-call
quality and add services such as high-speed Internet access, Harris's
Funderburg said.

Verizon Wireless Inc., the nation's biggest cell-phone operator, said
in January it would spend $1 billion through 2005 to upgrade its network.
AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Cingular Wireless LLC plan to merge this
year to create a larger competitor to Verizon and Sprint PCS.

Several potential transactions have come to light following last
month's merger announcement by AT&T Wireless and Cingular. Verizon
Communications Inc. and SBC Communications Inc. are seeking buyers for
billions of dollars in phone lines, while BellSouth Corp. is discussing the
sale of its Latin American wireless business to Spain's Telefonica SA for as
much as $6 billion.



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