Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile was bought by T-Mobile for $1.35 billion

T-Mobile is buying Mint Mobile, the budget wireless carrier owned by actor Ryan Reynolds, for up to $1.35 billion ($2 billion) to bolster its prepaid phone business and attract more low-income customers to reach.

The second-largest US wireless carrier is acquiring Mint’s parent company, Ka’ena Corp., for a combination of 39 percent cash and 61 percent stock, according to a statement Wednesday. The final purchase price is based on Mint meeting certain performance targets both before and after the closing of the transaction. The sales talks were first reported by Bloomberg News in January.

Reynolds, who owns an undisclosed but “significant” stake in Mint, will continue to act commercially on behalf of the company, co-founder David Glickman said in an interview, adding the actor has incentives to “keep going for years to come.” Glickman and his partner Rizwan Kassim will join T-Mobile and lead the business, which includes Ultra Mobile, an international phone service.

Mint offers some of the cheapest cellular plans in the country, starting at $15 a month for 4 gigabytes of wireless data. The companies did not disclose the number of subscribers to Mint. Annual subscriber growth over the past four years has been 50 percent and revenue growth has been 70 percent or more each year, Glickman said.

The company has no stores and sells phones and cellular plans entirely online. The service is already provided by T-Mobile as part of a wholesale network sharing contract.

“Mint’s formula is working, the brand is growing fast, and we can pour more fuel on it using the buying power for phones and marketing,” said Mike Katz, T-Mobile’s president of marketing. The Bellevue, Washington-based airline also operates its own prepaid brand called Metro.

The pay-as-you-go market is credited as the source of overall subscriber growth as customers with compromised credit ratings are eventually drawn into regular monthly billing. Mint competes with other prepaid phone brands, including AT&T’s Cricket, Verizon’s Total, and Dish Network’s Boost Mobile.

T-Mobile expects the deal to close later this year and expects no changes to its 2023 financial outlook. Mint will be “slightly positive” on adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.