Houston-based Crest Financial has brought in Washington PR support as the firm urges fellow shareholders of Clearwire Corp. to reject a merger with Sprint Nextel Corp.

clearwireClearwire is a publicly traded network partner of Sprint, which owns half of the company and has proposed acquiring the final 50% in a $2.2B tender offer.

A majority of Clearwire shareholders have to approve the deal.

Crest Financial, which has engaged D.C.-based BGR PR (the former Barbour, Griffith Rogers), thinks Clearwire can get a better price than Sprint's $2.97-per-share offer. It has launched a proxy campaign and filed a 40-page pitch to fellow shareholders with the SEC May 8 urging them to vote against the Sprint deal.

Jeff Birnbaum, president of BGR's PR unit, is counseling CF.

Clearwire, which controls valuable wireless spectrum and was a pioneer of 4G mobile technology, received a $3.30-per-share offer in January from Dish Network, but Dish followed that up with a $25.5B bid for Sprint. The company needs cash to build its network on the LTE standard.

Verizon has also reportedly offered to lease $1.5B of Clearwire's capacity.

A special committee tapped by Clearwire's board, which is working with JLM Partners and MacKenzie Partners for the proxy fight, says the Sprint deal is the best strategic alternative for the minority stockholders.

Clearwire investors like Comcast and Intel support the Sprint deal.