Ed Whitacre, the current AT&T (NYSE: T) CEO, has been running one or more of the Bells for a long time. He ran SBC since 1990 when it mergered with AT&T. In June, he hits retirement age. To no one's surprise, his No.2, Randall Stephenson, will move up to Chairman & CEO. Stephenson was chief operating officer at SBC before the merger. He was both controller and CFO before he took over operations.
Whitacre goes out on top. He engineered the merger between SBC and AT&T, and then took over BellSouth again. He has come close to re-assembling the original AT&T. He leaves with a $158.5 million retirement package.
Over the last two years, AT&T's share price is up almost 70%. The merger with BellSouth has gone well. AT&T's first-quarter 2007 reported net income was $2.8 billion, up from $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2006, and reported earnings per diluted share were $0.45, versus $0.37 in the year-earlier quarter. The company's wireless operations, renamed AT&T Wireless, did particularly well.
One question will dog Whitacre's legacy. It is whether he moved quickly enough into fiber-based high speed internet to take TV and broadband customers away from cable companies. Cable has been converting large numbers of telecom voice customers to VoIP.
But, that is Stephenson's problem now.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-27-2007 @ 1:36PM
Joe said...
Ed has done a great job, he has guided the company from the smallest of the Baby Bells (SBC) to the largest of the telecom's during his tenure. It has been a period of change in the telecom industry with cable, internet, wireless and new technologies providing more competition. The future AT&T will be supplying more of our entertainment to our homes with the new systems they are putting in across the country.
In Douglas' blog he say SBC merged with AT&T in 1990 I believe that was the midwest baby bell Ameritech that merged with SBC. SBC bought AT&T and retained its name in 1995 and recently purcased Bell South. Joe
5-27-2007 @ 9:06AM
from the inside said...
About time the old fart stepped down....needed to go 15 yrs ago when he started to drive the stock into the ground
5-01-2007 @ 9:22PM
Dan said...
Ran across this blog by accident....
Both Douglas & Joe are incorrect in the timelines
of the former SBC's mergers. The AT&T deal closed in 2005 & SBC adopted the AT&T name. They recently finished their merger with BellSouth in 2006 which gave them full control over Cingular(now being re-branded AT&T).Pacific Telesis (1997),SNET (1998) and Ameritech (1999).
Basically, Mr. Whitacre took what was considered the smallest of the "Baby Bells" and has transformed it into a worldwide powerhouse. The compensation may be "a little out of line", but the achievements have been extraordinary.