What's happening for the past week was Sidgmore purging all these that are royal to Ebbers????
"We all got along famously at the beginning," Sidgmore says. The three wowed Wall Street and cut ever bigger deals, and in 1998 pulled off a purchase of long-distance company MCI. The group had regular deal sessions, where they looked at anything that fit what they called their "strike zone."
That started to come apart in 1999. Sidgmore wanted to buy wireless phone company Nextel, and had negotiated the deal. One hour before it was to close, Sullivan told Ebbers he didn't like the deal, and Ebbers pulled the plug on it.
"The Nextel deal killed John," Jagemann says. When Ebbers then bought Digex without consulting Sidgmore, the relationship turned bitter.
"I think that was the beginning of the end of the company," Sidgmore says. WorldCom broke into fiefdoms. |
