There is some interesting corporate maneuvering happening behind the scenes at T-Mobile. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall) talks about the plans that Timotheus Höttges, the CEO of Deutsche Telekom, has for his company. The company is already the biggest cellular company in the world with over 273 million mobile customers in fifty countries.

Höttges is now trying to orchestrate a full merger between the two firms. Deutsche Telekom currently owns 54% of T-Mobile, and during his twelve years in charge of the company, he’s changed T-Mobile from a company that perpetually lost money to one of the most recognizable brand names in the industry. He thinks a merger is needed to give T-Mobile the resources it needs to fully succeed.

T-Mobile recognizes that the key to success is to own a large number of both fiber and cellular customers. The company has been engaging in partnership deals to gain a share of fiber overbuilders. A few years ago, the company purchased a 50% stake in Metronet, a Midwest fiber overbuilder. The company engaged in a joint venture with EQT to acquire Lumos. More recently, T-Mobile purchased 50% of i3 Broadband, GoNetspeed, and Greenlight Networks. The company bought all of the ownership of US Internet in the Twin Cities.

The Wall Street Journal reports that T-Mobile is financially constrained from growing through big acquisitions and deals. The current T-Mobile corporate structure makes it impossible for the company to buy companies by issuing stocks without diluting the ownership of Deutsche Telekom, and it’s limited on how much debt it can take on.

Höttges believes that combining Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile into a giant $300 billion company will allow T-Mobile to take on the debt needed to grow. He thinks T-Mobile should be competing with AT&T and Verizon, and that’s going to take big acquisitions.

Höttges apparently has his work cut out for him. Current T-Mobile shareholders might not be interested in gaining ownership of the lower-margin Deutsche Telekom. He also needs to convince the German government, which owns a 28% share of Deutsche Telekom. And if he can pull off those steps, he has a lot of work to do to gain regulatory approval in the U.S. and Europe.

You have to wonder where an unconstrained T-Mobile would look for growth. There are still additional mid-sized and smaller fiber overbuilders it could pursue. The largest cable company that could be on the market is Altice, which is mired in a lawsuit against Apollo Global Management, Ares Management, and BlackRock that accuses the companies of trying to force it into bankruptcy.

The only other large companies that might make sense for a merger with T-Mobile would be Charter or Comcast. I’ve been reading several analysts lately who think the big blockbuster mergers are inevitable. But some think a more natural suitor for these companies would be SpaceX.

There is a lot that has to happen for Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile before any big blockbuster deal can be contemplated.  For those of us who enjoy watching the big boys maneuver, the next few years are going to be very interesting.