TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Long-Term AT&T Investors

Re: Long-Term AT&T Investors

Garrett Wollman (wollman@csail.mit.edu)
Tue, 7 Mar 2006 22:02:11 +0000 (UTC)

In article <telecom25.92.14@telecom-digest.org>, Anthony Bellanga
<no-spam@no-spam.no-spam> wrote:

> I assume that NCR is for National Cash Register, AV is for Avaya, VZ
> is for Verizon, Q is for Qwest, BLS is for BellSouth, and LU is for
> Lucent. (Am I correct?)

Yes.

> But, pray tell, what do the stock codes ACR, T, CMCSA, VOD stand for?
> And if they aren't "obvious" entities, how would they relate to the
> (old) AT&T "Bell System"?

AGR is Agere Systems, a spin-off from Avaya, which was a spin-off of
Lucent. Agere is the business that used to be "AT&T Microelectronics"
many years ago, and made things like microprocessors and D-to-A
converters. T is of course AT&T itself. CMCSA is Comcast, a
descendant of AT&T Broadband. VOD is Vodafone Airtouch plc, the
mutant offspring of Pacific Telesis and Racal. (The Web page I
started this thread with goes through the whole history.)

> Also, AT&T used to own a part of Bell Canada, which is now part of
> Bell Canada Enterprises.

AT&T's interest in BCE was sold, rather than being distributed to AT&T
shareholders, so an AT&T shareholder never received BCE (or NT) stock.
Likewise SNET and Cinti Bell. When one company only has an investment
in another company, without control, that's usually how it's done.
For a majority-owned and controlled subsidiary, there are tax benefits
to spinning it to shareholders rather than doing a public offering.
(AIUI, in the former case, the shareholders only have to pay taxes
when they sell their shares; in the latter, it's treated as a capital
gain [or loss] to the parent company at the time of the offering.
IANATA, YMMV, etc.)

Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)

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