Japan’s Softbank has hired the Carmen Group to work its proposed deal to purchase a 75 percent stake in Sprint, the No. 3 telecom. The $20B deal faces muster from the Federal Communications and Justice Dept.
David Carmen, who was communications director for Ronald Reagan’s Citizens for America grassroots group, leads the charge.
He’s assisted by Bill Signer, a former aide to Manhattan Congressman Charlie Rangel, and John Ladd, ex-chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee.
Sprint uses an array of D.C. lobbyists including Fritts Group; Franklin Square Group, Cormac Group, Putala Strategies and Fierce Isakowitz & Blalock.
Meanwhile, Carmen Group has just opened a Los Angeles outpost headed by Hope Boonshaft, who once helmed Hill+Knowlton Strategies’ L.A. outpost and served as executive VP/external affairs at Sony Entertainment Pictures.
Carmen has Hollywood ties as founder of Anonymous Content, producer of films “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Fifty First Dates” and “Babel”) and commercials (Procter & Gamble, Budweiser and General Electric).