CenturyLink Keen to Acquire AT&T, DSL Assets

CenturyLink has expressed high levels of willingness to purchase AT&T as well as DSL assets that are being sold by Verizon.

The company’s CFO Stewart Ewing gave the clearest hint of a possible acquisition in his speech at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. He said they will make the move at the right time once it’s established that such a decision is in line with their long-term strategy.

It is understood that Verizon and AT&T are secretly running away from the DSL market so as not to cause market anxiety. Their reason has not been well established but it could be as a result of production costs that are soaring high every day. Once that happens, CenturyLink is ready to take over some of the assets.

“We’re comfortable with the asset base we have to turn the top line around and turn EBITDA around,” Ewing is reported to have said at the conference. “We’ll continue to look at opportunities as we have in the past. We obviously get an opportunity to look at things quite a bit each year, but have not pulled the trigger yet.” Speaking at the same conference, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said the company will only take a consideration into any deal that meets their projected price offer.

“For the right price and right terms, if there’s an asset we don’t believe is strategic to Verizon and can return shareholder value, we’ll dispose of that asset,” he said. “If you look at Florida, Texas and California, these are three island properties and FiOS is a small footprint of those properties compared to the copper footprint except for Florida because it was just Tampa.” The direction that this matter takes in the coming days will have a big impact on the Internet market across America.

CenturyLink Keen to Acquire AT&T, DSL Assets

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