Today's Financial Times story on Global Crossing & DT:
Telekom reported in talks with Global Crossing NEWS DIGEST:
08-Oct-1999 01:58:16 am
Deutsche Telekom recently held preliminary talks with Global Crossing about a
takeover of the fast-growing carrier, according to one person close to the
discussions. Although those talks, said to have taken place this summer, came to
nothing, they mark the first sign that the German company has approached other
US carriers about a deal since efforts to buy Sprint failed.
Shares in the remaining independent long-distance carriers have all soared on
speculation Deutsche Telekom or BellSouth, another disappointed suitor for
Sprint, would move quickly to find an alternative acquisition.
Global Crossing, a two-year-old company that burst onto the international
telecoms scene this year with a string of ambitious deals, recently completed a
Dollars 10bn acquisition of Frontier to boost its US presence. A Global Crossing
spokesman said that he was unable to confirm that the talks with Deutsche
Telekom took place.
The company's stock rose a further Dollars 3 11/16, or 13 per cent, to Dollars 32
3/16 yesterday, taking its total gain since the beginning of the month to around 30
per cent.
Other independent long-distance carriers have also soared on the takeover
speculation. Qwest, which sold a 10 per cent stake to BellSouth earlier this year
and is widely seen as a natural merger partner with it, has risen by one-fifth since
news of the Sprint takeover talks first broke.
BellSouth's failure in its own bid to buy Sprint over the weekend has led to
widespread speculation that it will now turn its attention to another takeover target.
However, relations with Qwest have soured since that company made its own bid
to acquire US West, another of the Baby Bells. That move led to a precipitate drop
in its share price just days after BellSouth took its 10 per cent stake. William Lewis
and Richard Waters, New York
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