It has come to the knowledge from undisclosed sources that Ralph Whitworth, the chief and principal and activity investor of the Relational Investor within very recent days has become able to quietly gather together an amount of $5000 million stake amounting to 1% in Sprint Nextel Corp.

It is noted in this regard, that Mr. Whitworth is the founder and principal of Relational Investors LLC, a $2.2 billion investment fund that has it specialization in strategic block investments. He has already served as Chairman of the Board of Two Public Companies during crisis and “turnaround” situations and as a director of five others. His hands-on experience has given him a unique understanding of the business environment and has earned him the respect of the business community. In addition, Mr. Whitworth brings direct operational experience in finance, investments and acquisitions. His 18 years of business and corporate board activities enable him to identify the problems facing companies and their boards, and perhaps most importantly, give him the ability to effectively communicate with the board.

Mr. Whitworth served as chairman of the board of Waste Management, Inc. in 1999 as a major crisis management assignment. He was responsible for overall management of the company and also led the recruitment effort to replace the company’s management team. He played a similar role at Apria Healthcare Group Inc. (the world’s largest home healthcare provider) in 1998. He continues to serve on the boards of Apria and Waste Management.

In meetings with the present management, Whitworth is keeping his voice above others advocating tirelessly for big changes that includes capital spending pullbacks and a sale of Sprint's fiber-optic networking and long-distance units. On the other hand it has come out that, Sprint shares have lost almost 25% of its viability since its August 2005 merger with Nextel since the company continues to be bereaved of loyal customers to rivals AT&T and Verizon, whose shares on the contrary have gained by 60% and 9% respectively during the same time period.

To many investors, management has been too slow to implement post-merger changes and there are worthy examples of those in ample numbers. Meanwhile, Sprint's promised WiMax network which was scheduled to begin it’s rolling out late this year, is supposed to double wireless broadband speeds, but Whitworth views WiMax as an overly tentative cash flow drain. To popular estimates, Sprint shares will probably jump on the news, but questions remain whether Whitworth can lend a favorable hand to heighten the company's confidence and performance in the long-term.