Word: tci
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...already come and gone. The big problem was the slumping value of Bell Atlantic stock, which had dropped from 67 5/8 on Oct. 14 to 52 3/4 the day the deal collapsed. That was uncomfortably below the $54 a share that Bell Atlantic had pledged to pay for TCI. Malone, whose personal stake would have been worth more than $1 billion under the merger agreement, demanded more Bell Atlantic shares to offset the decline in price. But Smith, who noted that issuing more stock would dilute the value of existing holders' shares, refused to comply. "TCI is a great property...
...playwright who turned Bell Atlantic into the most venturesome of the seven Baby Bells, had come up through the staid bureaucratic ranks of AT&T before its breakup in 1984. Malone, 52, is a strong-willed, publicity-averse entrepreneur with a Ph.D. in operations research who built the fledgling TCI into the country's largest cable operator, gaining a reputation for ruthlessness along...
...consider cutting its dividend in order to plow more money into capital investment? Bell Atlantic wouldn't hear of it; like other big utilities, the firm considers large and steady dividends to be an important feature of its stock. Smith had at least 40 questions of his own. Could TCI deal with the intense level of regulatory scrutiny that Bell Atlantic was used to? Did TCI's cable executives have the flexibility to branch into other fields...
These companies aim to build on a trial basis in limited locations, rather than rushing ahead on a nationwide scale, as Bell Atlantic and TCI had planned to do. "The information highway will be constructed on the basis of consumer demand, rather than on the basis of build-it-and-they- will-come," says Steve Krause, a technology analyst with SRI International...
...chairman Reed Hundt won't buy that. "Our decision did not make the future of the cable industry more uncertain," Hundt insists. "Our job is to protect the public interest and prevent cable companies from charging monopoly prices." The demise of the Bell Atlantic-TCI deal has certainly not cooled either company's ardor for future consolidations. They are still talking about possible cooperative ventures between them, and each firm is already eyeing prospective new partners. "There's plenty of adrenaline pumping here," Smith says. "We are a company on the prowl." So is TCI. No sooner had the merger...