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It seems like a lifetime ago that the old Ma Bell phone monopoly was broken up by the government back in 1984, but approval today by the Justice Department puts modern day parts of that company, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and BellSouth Corp (NYSE: BLS), one step closer to reuniting.After examining the impact of AT&T gaining control of Cingular Wireless, the Justice Department's antitrust division concluded that the merger would not have a material impact on competition in the industry. Should the deal make it through the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T will end up with roughly 57.3 million cellular customers.
A ruling is scheduled tomorrow from the FCC, but from the looks of things an approval should be in the making. The Justice Department announced that while reaching their decision they coordinated with the FCC in the investigation. There are some rumors that the FCC is under political pressure that could cause a delay in tomorrow's decision, but barring that possibility, we should know the fate of this merger within a day.
Should the merger go through, AT&T will have 300,000 employees over 23 states with the intention of only cutting around 10,000 redundant jobs over the next 3 years. AT&T will be on track to generate around $117 billion in revenue following the merger.
BellSouth shareholders voted to approve the sale of their company to AT&T back on July 21, and AT&T has said that they plan to leave Cingular headquarters in Atlanta for at least 5 years, but after that no official plans have been made.
Both stocks have traded up on today's news:
- AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T): stock is trading up 0.7% to $33.01 up $0.24
- BellSouth Corp (NYSE: BLS) : stock has picked up 1.0% to $43.64 up $0.44
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