T-Mobile USA, the fourth-biggest U.S. wireless company, will debut this morning on the New York Stock Exchange after completing its combination with MetroPCS Communications Inc., a smaller rival.

The stock will trade under the ticker of TMUS and the enlarged company will retain the T-Mobile USA name and be based at the carrier’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington.

The deal gives Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Mobile’s parent, a 74 percent stake in the merged entity and MetroPCS shareholders $1.5 billion, or $4.06 a share, in cash as well as the remaining stake in the company. Taking account of the cash payment and a capital injection Deutsche Telekom is providing with a loan, the stock could start trading in a range of $15 to $16 a share, according to Todd Rethemeier, an analyst with Hudson Square Research in New York.

“Of course, stocks can do strange things around events like this,” said Rethemeier, who has a $16 price target for the new company.

T-Mobile is adding 9 million MetroPCS customers to its own 34 million. With MetroPCS, T-Mobile now has a larger holding of airwave licenses needed to offer fast services to compete with Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., the biggest carriers.

Shareholder Pressure

MetroPCS’s board agreed to sell to T-Mobile in October, but shareholders and shareholder advisory firms called the offer inadequate. T-Mobile improved its bid three weeks ago by reducing the amount of debt it would transfer to the new company and reducing the interest rate on the debt. The improved offer won shareholder approval last week.

On April 10, bowing to shareholder pressure, Deutsche Telekom agreed to lower the size and interest rate of its loan to the joint company. The modified merger terms cut the shareholder loan to $11.2 billion from $15 billion and trimmed the interest rate by half a percentage point.

It won the endorsement of MetroPCS’s largest investor, Paulson & Co., as well as two shareholder-advisory firms in the run-up to the investor vote. On April 24, MetroPCS shareholders approved the deal.

T-Mobile has lagged behind peers in constructing faster networks and offering Apple Inc.’s iPhone. Since it began to make the device available last month, Chief Executive Officer John Legere will need to prove that a strategy of scrapping long-term contracts will win back subscribers.
MetroPCS, based in Richardson, Texas, closed down less than 1 percent to $11.84 a share yesterday after gaining 19 percent so far this year. The stock has fallen 13 percent since Oct. 2, the day before the deal was announced.

For Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann, the deal brings a successful conclusion to years of travel and negotiations to find a solution for the company’s U.S. business. A $39 billion agreement to sell T-Mobile to AT&T collapsed in 2011 because of opposition by regulators.

While Deutsche Telekom has agreed not to sell the shares on the market for 18 months, the new T-Mobile will facilitate an eventual withdrawal from the U.S., people familiar with Obermann’s plans have said.

Jennifer Fritzsche, an analyst with Wells Fargo & Co. in Chicago, welcomed the arrival of a publicly traded T-Mobile USA to the market in a note this week. “We have a new guest at the party,” Fritzsche wrote.

(Bloomberg News and The Associated Press contributed to this report)