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

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.