This might be of interest to us shareholders with faith...
wallstreetcity.com
I.D.E.A. Global Focus Oct 7 1999 9:05AM CST Archives...
<<<BellSouth hunts mate
Will BellSouth, like a jilted lover, seek a new partner? IDEAglobal.com picks some stocks that are set to rise in coming weeks on telecom-merger speculation.
Local-phone operator BellSouth [BLS] lost out in the bidding war for long-distance provider Sprint [FON] on Tuesday. But already shares in other smaller phone companies are rising as investors wonder if Bell will look for another partner.
Currently, BellSouth is just a local-phone-service provider, though the dominant one, in the south-eastern US. To become a national presence, the company would have to add a lot of things to its business.
What BellSouth will probably have to do though, is find a number of companies that could together bring to the table what Sprint would have offered on its own. That means finding a strong long-distance provider as well as one or several wireless phone-service providers.
While IDEAglobal.com can't see inside the minds or hearts of BellSouth executives, we do know market psychology. And we know it won't take an actual merger, but only speculation of a merger, to send share prices of BellSouth and other telecom stocks higher in the next few weeks.
The most obvious company for a BellSouth merger is Nextel [NXTL]. The company provides both digital and analogue wireless communications services. It serves 50 different metropolitan areas and may make a good partner for BellSouth, but it was downgraded by a number of analysts on Wednesday.
Nonetheless, the stock is rising. And it's all down to speculation that Nextel might get bought out by the spurned BellSouth.>>>
|
