Jan --
WSJ is naming C&W as the likely buyer:
<<<
Dow Jones Newswires -- May 28, 1998
MCI Plans To Sell Internet Assets To Speed Merger-Paper
Dow Jones Newswires
WASHINGTON -- MCI Communications Corp. plans to announce as early as today the sale of its Internet facilities, a deal meant to speed approval by European regulators of MCI's pending $37 billion sale to WorldCom Inc., according to sources familiar with the plan. By one account, Cable & Wireless PLC is the most likely buyer, the Washington Post reported.
Analysts had predicted only a partial sell-off of Internet assets, which consist largely of switching equipment that routes electronic messages, would be necessary to meet the concerns of the European Commission. That agency contends that a combined WorldCom-MCI would control too much traffic along the main trunks, or backbone, of the Internet into and out of Europe.
European regulators largely have agreed with deal critics GTE Corp. and other rivals that a combined WorldCom and MCI would carry more than half of the data traffic along the global Internet's backbone.
The U.S. Department of Justice also is reviewing the merger, and plans to announce its findings jointly with the European regulators. The European Union has a July 15 deadline by which to decide the issue.
Cable & Wireless, which would buy the Internet facilities for an as-yet undisclosed price, would add MCI's backbone to an Internet backbone that it build last year in the United States as a way to speed data through the crowded U.S. Internet market, the Washington Post reported.>>>> |
