MetroPCS yesterday made a very public offer to buy Leap Wireless for more than $5 billion, which the Wall Street Journal's Dana Cimilluca says may well have been a desperate move on Metro's part.

"Going public with a buyout offer is an unfriendly move that M&A tacticians employ only when they aren't getting their way through the back channels," Cimilluca writes. "The [press] release loudly begs the question of what went on behind the scenes before the offer was made public. Doesn't there have to be a good story lurking beneath the surface here?"

The story, Cimilluca says, is that Leap had been rejecting MetroPCS' offers, so the company made the offer public in order to interest Leap's shareholders. And it appears to have worked. "Leap's stock soared 16% to $84.34," Cimilluca writes. "That means they like what they see and might not be too keen on an unwillingness on the part of the company's officials to discuss the offer. (Even Metro shareholders like the idea of the all-stock deal; Metro stock rose 6% to $28.83.)"

Leap had no comment.

More here from FierceWireless ... more here from InformationWeek ... more here from the New York Times ... more here from the AP ... and MetroPCS' press release is here.