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Friday, Sep. 25, 1998
Sprint CEO: No merger in company's future
Esrey says business already offers wide range of services
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Sprint Corp. is thriving on its own and has no need to join the parade of mergers transforming the telecommunications industry, chief executive officer William T. Esrey said Thursday.
``If I thought we needed something we didn't have, we would consider going and getting it or even consider a merger,'' Esrey said. ``But I don't know what that is. We're very comfortable where we are.''
Esrey spoke in an interview after addressing the national convention of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Sprint became the object of merger speculation following the announcement of billion-dollar deals involving competitors AT&T, MCI, SBC Communications Inc. and Bell Atlantic Inc.
Despite Esrey's assertions, analyst Jeffrey Kagan of Kagan Telecom Associates of Atlanta said Sprint might still find itself cutting a deal.
``They will stay single until somebody makes them an offer they can't refuse. If there's an offer that's too good for the shareholders to pass up, they'll take it.''
``They don't need to merge in order to be successful. But if they don't, and if they stay at their present size, it limits their resources.''
Esrey, while declining to comment on speculation, said Sprint stands alone in the industry in the range of services it offers.
``We spent a lot of time positioning ourselves for the last six to eight years for the things we think our public is going to need, whether it's local service, long-distance, data services, Internet access and our global alliance, to give us economical worldwide communications,'' he said.
``Competitors are going out and spending tens of billions of dollars literally to get that capability by buying other companies at fairly high prices,'' he said.
Kansas City-based Sprint is the nation's third-largest long-distance company with 11 million customers. Its local division serves 7.4 million customer lines in 19 states.
Joint ventures have helped feed Sprint's growth in recent years. Its Sprint PCS wireless communications service, with more than 1 million customers, was developed in 1994 as a joint venture with Tele-Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications. Sprint reached agreement in May to acquire the partners' combined 60 percent stake.
Other joint ventures include Global One, a partnership with France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, and its recent alliance with EarthLink providing Internet access to about 700,000 customers.
Esrey noted the August launch of Telmex-Sprint Communications, a joint venture with Telefonos de Mexico targeted at what Sprint calls the underserved Mexican-American market.
Telmex-Sprint lets U.S. residents pay for telephone service provided in Mexico and offers lower rates for calls from Mexico to the United States than the collect calling traditionally relied on by many Mexicans.Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web