By Sinead Carew
NEW YORK, June 12 (Reuters) - Clearwire Corp's board urged shareholders on Wednesday to accept a tender offerfrom Dish Network Corp over an earlier deal withmajority owner Sprint Nextel Corp to buy out the minorityshareholders of the wireless service provider.
The decision was a boost for Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen whois also in a takeover battle with SoftBank Corp to takefull control of Sprint.
Both Sprint and satellite TV service provider Dish wantcontrol of Clearwire's vast trove of wireless airwave licenses.
Dish is looking to expand into the wireless market becauseits traditional pay television business has matured, while No. 3U.S. mobile provider Sprint wants to beef up its wirelessnetwork to better compete with bigger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.
Clearwire asked shareholders to accept Dish's tender offerof $4.40 per share based on the unanimous recommendation of aspecial committee set up by the board to evaluate the offer. Iturged investors to vote against Sprint's $3.40 per share offerto buy the more than 49 percent of the company it does notalready own.
Sprint said it was evaluating Clearwire's statement andwould "review any corresponding filings before determining itsnext steps." It said it intends to enforce its governance rightsas Clearwire's majority shareholder. It previously said its$3.40 per share bid was final.
Clearwire said it would postpone a June 13 shareholder voteon the Sprint bid until June 24. Dish said on Wednesday it wasextending its tender offer for Clearwire shares to July 2 from aprevious deadline of June 28.
Dish also said shareholders with 245,411 shares had tenderedshares as of Tuesday, June 11.
Several Clearwire shareholders had said they were not happywith the Sprint offer even before Dish's counter bid. Clearwireshares have risen more than 25 percent since Dish announced itsoffer. The stock closed at $3.48 on May 29 before Ergen made theoffer and was about 5 percent higher at $4.37 by the end oftrading on Wednesday.
Strategic investors with 13 percent of Clearwire's publicshares have already committed to vote for the Sprint offer. Butit was not clear if those commitments from Intel Corp and cable companies Comcast Corp, and privately heldBrighthouse Networks would be maintained after the Clearwirerecommendation.
Intel declined to comment on Wednesday's developments.Comcast and Brighthouse were not immediately available forcomment.
SoftBank, which approved the Sprint bid for Clearwire, hadpreviously said it would be happy with majority ownership ofClearwire even if shareholders voted down the deal becauseSprint would still control of the company.
Earlier this week, SoftBank raised its bid for Sprint to$21.6 billion for 78 percent of the company in response toDish's offer of $25.5 billion.
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