AT&T could sell $8 billion in assets in bid to win merger approval

By on Aug 12, 2011 at 7:30 PM
Business August 12, 2011

AT&T has hired Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch to advise it on the sale of as much as $8 billion in assets in an effort to gain the government’s approval of its planned T-Mobile acquisition. According to The Wall Street Journal, AT&T will try to sell off its network assets in an attempt water down its market power, but most of of the assets could actually be T-Mobile’s holdings. “As we said on the day we announced the merger with T-Mobile USA, we anticipate there will be some divestitures, as we have had in past mergers, but any speculation about the amount of divestitures is premature,” an AT&T spokesperson told The Journal. On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission pumped the brakes on the merger when it announced that it will roll in AT&T’s planned acquisition of Qualcomm’s FLOTV spectrum into its overall decision on the T-Mobile purchase. AT&T has said that the acquisition is on schedule for approval in March of next year.

Tags:
, , , , , , , ,
26 Comments

Related Articles

  • Anonymous

    And how is this going to create Jobs ? I really wish the deal does not go through. 

    • http://twitter.com/DevilRejected Cory D McDonald

      I’d love to know that as well. AT&T’s bid for Tmo has more red flags every day

  • http://profiles.google.com/eliran.azoulay Eliran Azoulay

    Is it me or does that AT&T building look evil ?

    • Pizz

      It looks like Aesir Tower

  • Anonymous

    This is all part of their original plan. They only want T-Mobile’s spectrum and T-Mobile crushed.

    They don’t care nor need the rest such as overlapping spectrum, customers, CS reps, local stores, etc.

    • Noteopter

      Ok so Deutsch telecommunications the parent company of T-Mobile is bleeding money from T-Mobile USA and is gonna dump it either way. What all of you are saying is you’d rather have the company disbanded to twelve other smaller carriers that are regional players at best and will only offer crap to the original T-Mobile customer. Wake up!

  • Droidz

    I wish the FCC would just come in and crush this thing already.

    I sure don’t need to be a manure farmer to tell ya that this thing stinks like sh*t from a mile away.

    Unfortunately, we live in a world where votes can be bought, so rather then worrying about what best for the consumer all the politicians really care about is who’s pockets are getting greased in the process.  Which means this thing WILL be approved by March and we’ll be one step closer to the good old monopoly that Bell had built years ago only to have it broken up.

    And somehow WE are to believe that this will create jobs and improve prices?!?!  Kiss my ass AT&T!  The layoffs will be in the tens of thousands and mark my words prices will do nothing but steadily increase as a result of this.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YCHGT5KAKHAUZ55FASXLGVLMMU Anonymous

    This company is a huge SCAM…..I would love to see this piece of shit go to hell>

  • Roflmao

    I think I speak for half of America who has the misfortune of being stuck with AT&T: 

    FUCK you AT&T!

  • Neoprimal

    It’s as if they know for a fact the merger is going through. Hmmmm.

  • f7u12

    ok, for the last damn time….its NOT a MERGER it is an acquisition!!!!!!!!!! 

  • Anonymous

    I….. Hate…… ATT so much it makes my head hurt. If they were the last cellphone company on the earth is would never sign up to them. They are greedy rich executives that only are in the interest for themselves and getting money in there pockets. None of ATT policies are good and people still trust them when they are the biggest scamming company in history. I hope they die if this shit goes down, because it only gets worst

    • Josh82985

      How is that different from an corporation?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chuck-Wilson/1349086575 Chuck Wilson

    I’m one of the many that do like At&t. Never had a problem with them. Never a dropped call nothing wrong. Plan on staying with them for a long time.

  • Anonymous

    AT&t must be desperate to get rid if T-Mobile.

    • Anonymous

      Of course they are. T-Mobile gives AT&T the only serious competation they have for the international traveler and for foreigners traveling to the United States. With T-Mobile out of the way the vast majority of international travelers will become AT&T subscribers and all foreigners visiting the United States will be forced to use their network. Those customers alone are worth billions of dollars a year. Plus, AT&T can force their union employees to give back pay and benefits by threating their jobs with non-union T-Mobile employees.

  • Anonymous

    I like to buy the hall company and close it down

  • Anonymous

    Wether a merger or acquisition, this should not be allowed to happen. AT&T is already too powerful and arrogant. They do intend on massive layoffs and the first to go will be the older employess. These are the ones that will have the hardest time finding new jobs.   

  • jasper

    Quick question: Let’s suppose this acquisition does goes through in “March of next year” how long would it take for T-Mobile customers to become AT&T? ..another year for a complete change? right away? or a couple of months?

    • Anonymous

      Not that long. You have to figure that both companies already have the mechanism in place to transfer the customers from T-Mobile’s billing system over to AT&T’s.

      • jasper

        thanks for the reply.

    • Mikeyr

      AT&T is already removing cdma equipment from T-Mobile towers. This shuts down roaming agreements with Sprint. Many areas in the Midwest have been reduced to 1X service. The regulators don’t seem to care. This acquisition sadly appears to be a done deal.

      The next time you hear regulators or politicians talk about “oversight,” you’ll know it’s a farce.

      • Josh82985

        Oh so thaaaats why sprint is opposed to the deal. Makes sense. I wish any corporation was honest. :(

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZETAEC2YUIDZN23QRSD6NC46NU INtrepid_BearCub

        I’m not necessarily questioning you, but I would like to see your source for this information. T-Mobile is a GSM carrier, and does not maintain a CDMA network for their own use or for licensing purposes, so the only reason there would be CDMA equipment on their towers is if they leased or licensed the space on the tower to another party. If Sprint, or another party, has in fact leased that space, it is doubtful that AT&T would be able to simply remove said equipment as it wouldn’t belong to them, and they would have to pay considerable penalties for breaking said lease.

      • jasper

        Thanks for the reply.

  • Anonymous

    By the way, I just paîd $21.87 for an îPad 2-64GB and my boyfriend loves his Panasonîc Lumîx GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS.I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $657 which only cost me $62.81 to buy.
    Here is the website we use to get it all from, http://BidsFirst.com

blog comments powered by Disqus