Featured: Trujillo Private Equity buyout for T-Mobile

T-Mobile USA has closed call centers and cut jobs to reduce costs after a $39 billion sale to AT&T Inc. (T) failed last year because regulators opposed the combination.Wireless operators in North America and Europe are struggling to find new sources of growth as the popularity of smartphones reaches a plateau and network costs rise to meet demand for mobile video and music.

With U.S. carriers struggling to accommodate surging data use in big cities, most potential buyers “would find T-Mobile’s spectrum far more compelling than its customer base,” said Atlantic Equities’ Watts.

Trujillo, 60, has run telecommunications businesses on three continents, getting his start at AT&T Corp., then known as Ma Bell, before its 1984 breakup. He eventually became chief executive officer of U.S. West, one of the seven Bell operating companies, and later ran French mobile operator Orange for a year.

After Orange’s takeover by France Telecom SA (FTE), Trujillo in 2005 became the CEO of Melbourne-based carrier Telstra, from which he resigned in 2009 after a tenure marked by clashes with the Australian government over telecommunications regulation