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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (16218)	6/19/1998 6:51:00 AM
From: Moonray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

Sooo, updating your profile. Having fun? o~~~ O

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (16218)	6/28/1998 8:56:00 PM
From: Moonray	Respond to of 22053

British Telecom in Talks With AT&T, Sunday Times Says London, June 28 (Bloomberg) -- British Telecommunications Plc and AT&T Corp., the biggest U.K. and U.S. phone companies, are in ''advanced negotiations'' to ally BT's business networks operation with AT&T, the Sunday Times of London said. The newspaper, citing no identified sources, said BT's Concert business, which services telephone networks of multinational corporations, needs an exclusive distributor in the U.S. and sees AT&T as a potential partner ''We don't comment on speculation,'' a BT spokesman said. ''Obviously, we're speaking to all the major players in the telecommunications industry all the time.'' An AT&T spokeswoman also declined to comment. BT's shares rose 2.3 percent last week after AT&T Chief Executive Michael Armstrong told analysts on Wednesday his company plans to buy outside the U.S. when it has digested its proposed $45.8 billion acquisition of Tele-Communications Inc., the No. 2 U.S. cable company. Telephone companies have been forming partnerships to offset declining revenue from local operations as deregulation intensifies competition worldwide. BT and AT&T currently are in different alliances. Alfred Mockett, president and chief executive of BT's international operations, said last week the alliances created in the global telephone industry aren't set in stone. He predicted allegiances will shift as competition intensifies for exploding business-communications revenue. Mockett wouldn't comment on speculation BT plans a joint venture with AT&T in the wake of BT's now-defunct plan to buy MCI Communications Corp., the No. 2 U.S. long-distance phone company. However, he said in an interview he expects some of the alliances set up to target lucrative multinational business will add partners as others shift allegiances in the battle for that highly prized segment of the $1 trillion telecommunications market. ''I anticipate a certain flexing and tweaking of business models among the global alliances and changes in their constituencies,'' said Mockett. ''These are living, dynamic organisms.'' Shares Soaring Measures accepted at the World Trade Organization and introduced earlier this year opened the global telecommunications industry to competition, setting off a flurry of mergers and acquisitions. Deregulation and higher-than-expected growth predictions in data and mobile communications are driving speculation and share prices. BT's shares have risen 57 percent since January, and the U.K. telecommunications index has outperformed the FT-SE 100 index of top British companies by 48 percent since January. ''Telecoms stocks are starting to behave like informatio technology stocks where people increasingly don't have a firm view on what the future holds,'' said Alan Lyons, telecommunications analyst at ABN Amro. BT is not alone in expecting changes of ownership. Telefonica de Espana, the biggest Spanish phone company, last week won shareholder approval of measures to block hostile takeovers as it embarks on expansion that could make it an acquisition target. It limited shareholders' voting rights to 10 percent of shares, regardless of the size of their stakes. BT started the move by phone companies around the world to establish partnerships when it formed Concert, a business- communications offshoot, with MCI in 1993. AT&T set up a series of loose partnerships with phone companies around the world, called AT&T WorldPartners, that unlike Concert didn't build infrastructure to carry more advanced services than are possible on ordinary phone lines. France Telecom SA, Deutsche Telekom AG and Sprint Communications Corp. set up a three-way alliance, though the Europeans have not exercised their right to buy more of Sprint than the 10 percent they each own. The dominant phone companies in the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland exchanged equity to create Unisource NV, part of AT&T's WorldParters venture. 'Two-Fold Approach' Meanwhile, having lost Concert partner MCI to WorldCom, BT said it will look at alternative ways to gain a presence in the U.S. market. ''We have a two-fold approach in the U.S: We're looking to supplement our distribution channels for Concert to address multinationals' needs and we're also reviewing our options for direct inward investment,'' said Mockett. ''Those can be done in conjunction or separately through one or multiple partners and we're looking at all the permutations of that.'' He said Concert is growing at a rate of 40 percent to 45 percent a year and will break even this year on $1 billion of revenue. Mockett said BT is looking at Internet acquisitions as one key area as demand for data communications grows around the world as companies and individuals connect to the World Wide Web. He declined to say whether the company is bidding for MCI's Internet assets, which the U.S. company has agreed to sell in order to get regulatory approval for its acquisition by WorldCom Inc. Cable & Wireless Plc has said it is interested in buying all of MCI's Internet assets. Mockett said he believes global partnerships that simply exchange traffic between different country networks rather than building separate global networks won't survive in the long term. ''Some rely on existing correspondent relationships, which is a low-cost strategy but not enduring over time,'' said Mockett. He said that's because using varying technology in different countries reduces the level of telecommunications services to the lowest common denominator. o~~~ O