Something up with ARTT. Apr10 calls very active yesterday (I bought in), though some sellers at $10 seemed to keep pressure on the stock.
I'm hearing $100-$125MM in converts may get done, possibly this week.
And wonder what effect (if any) the following will have on BBFW:
WSJ: FCC May Impose Tough Conditions On Baby Bell Mergers
By Kathy Chen and Stephanie N. Mehta
Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
The Federal Communications Commission may impose tough conditions on two huge Baby Bell mergers, including making the deals contingent on the Bells' first opening their networks to rival carriers in at least one state.
Such a measure could significantly delay, or even scuttle, SBC Communications Inc.'s $56 billion acquisition of Ameritech Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp.'s $52 billion merger with GTE Corp., which together serve millions of consumers.
FCC officials said the agency has yet to make a decision on the measure or on the deals themselves. The commission still could approve the deals without conditions. But after allowing several huge telecommunications deals in the past two years - the FCC approved AT&T Corp.'s purchase of cable-television giant TeleCommunications Inc. earlier this year - a number of commissioners have expressed concern over whether the latest deals would serve the public interest.
In addition, a continuing look at the impact of Bell Atlantic's 1997 merger with Nynex has underscored the difficulties of enforcing conditions once deals are approved. While Bell Atlantic contends that competition has flourished in the wake of the merger, MCI WorldCom Inc. and other carriers have complained that Bell Atlantic hasn't lived up to its promise to open its networks to competition.
As a result, FCC and congressional officials said, the agency is considering imposing tougher conditions on the SBCAmeritech and Bell
Atlantic-GTE deals, or even blocking one or both of the deals altogether.
Thomas Tauke, Bell Atlantic's senior vice president of government relations, said the FCC's possible conditions aren't "realistic." All four carriers expressed confidence that the deals would be completed on time -- by midyear for SBC-Ameritech and year end for Bell Atlantic-GTE. Executives at the Bell companies and GTE have argued that the deals would lead to increased competition by helping them compete with global players and by encouraging them to open their markets faster.
One approach the FCC is considering is including strict enforcement measures with any conditions it might attach to the deals. These could
include fines totaling tens of millions of dollars for violations. The FCC is also mulling whether to require the Bell companies to open their networks to rival carriers before they merge, said an agency official. It would show that the Bells are "really serious about moving toward allowing competition," the official said.
He and other FCC officials said any market-opening requirement would likely mirror a 14-point checklist the Bells mus t meet before they can offer long distance in their home markets. So far, no Bell has fulfilled the checklist, established under the 1996 Telecommunications Act, though all of them are trying. SBC and Bell Atlantic have said they are getting close to meeting the checklist in some states.
The FCC official said the agency is contemplating a range of ways it could apply the market-opening condition. With the SBC-Ameritech deal, the FCC might require the Bells to fulfill the 14-point checklist in "one or two states," he said. That would ensure that the carriers have a workable model for adopting their networks to accommodate rivals, which they could then implement in other states.
The issues facing the Bell Atlantic-GTE merger are more complex. The companies have asked the FCC to permit a GTE subsidiary to continue handling long-distance data traffic after the merger, even though Bell Atlantic most likely won't have met the market-opening requirements needed to offer long-distance services in the states concerned.
Mr. Tauke said a two-year limit on the waiver would spur the company to more quickly open its networks in all 13 states where it operates. The merger would "give more 'umph' " to the GTE subsidiary and boost competition in the concentrated Internet backbone business, he said. But at least three FCC commissioners signaled that they would have a problem with permitting the merged companies to offer any type of long-distance service before Bell Atlantic meets the market-opening requirements.
The FCC official conceded that imposing preconditions "might hold up the merger until {the companies} get there." Blake Bath, a senior vice president at Lehman Brothers, estimated that it could take the Bells "another 12 to 15 months" to meet any FCC preconditions.
Bell Atlantic's efforts to enter the long-distance market in New York underscores just how long the process could take. The company agreed to key market-opening provisions last April, but testing snafus and rivals' complaints are likely to delay its entry into the long-distance market until later this year.
(END) DOW JONES NEWS 03-23-99
12:30 AM
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