Sprint’s hot for T-Mobile’s number again

After getting nowhere with the cable giants, Sprint is in merger talks with TMobile in an attempt to collect $40 billion in estimated synergies.

The telecom carriers reportedly agree that T-Mobile’s controlling shareholder Deutsche Telekom would emerge the majority owner.

Sprint has also accepted that T-Mobile CEO John Legere — who has made a habit of taking digs at Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure on Twitter — would lead a combined entity.

CNBC, which first reported on talks between the two wireless carriers on Tuesday, cautioned an agreement is by no means assured. But that didn’t deter Wall Street. Sprint, the industry’s No. 4 company with a 12.8 percent share, saw its stock jump 6.8 percent, to close at $8.20. TMobile, No. 3 with a 16.9 percent share, climbed 5.9 percent, to $65.42.

Investors have seen this mating dance come to an abrupt end before.

In 2014, Sprint and Japanese parent SoftBank called off takeover talks with T-Mobile and German parent Deutsche Telekom after sensing US regulators would quash any deal that reduced the field from four to three key players.

Their motivation then, as now, was to create a stronger competitor to industry leader Verizon, with a 35.7 percent share, and AT&T, with 33.1 percent.

Sprint knew a merger during the Obama administration faced tough odds. AT&T announced plans to buy TMobile in 2011, but was blocked by the Justice Department six months later.

Acquisition lawyer Jonathan Bender of New York’s Wilk Auslander told The Post that the regulatory odds are better under the Trump administration but that it’s still “a tough call.”

Yet it may be the last hope for two companies that MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett likened to late-night cruisers at a bar.

“It’s 4 a.m., and everyone else has already left,” he wrote after Sprint’s exclusive talks with Charter and Comcast expired at the end of July.