Simon & Sons Moves Into Pay-Phone Field

A group led by Los Angeles investment firm William E. Simon & Sons bought majority stakes in two independent operators of pay telephones in California: Pacific Coin of Van Nuys and Nucom of San Leandro. The deals are part of Simon’s plan to buy several small independents, for a total price exceeding $100 million, and combine them to become a major player in the pay-phone field. Simon currently controls about 20,000 phones, and independents overall account for about 30% of the 270,000 pay phones in California, which are dominated by Pacific Bell and GTE, Simon said. The firm sees pay phones as potentially lucrative because the business was deregulated in 1996. Simon--which is led by William E. Simon Jr., son of the former U.S. Treasury secretary--said its pay-phone holdings will keep the Pacific Coin name and continue to operate out of Van Nuys.