Who Won, Who Lost
AT&T; ‘s proposed purchase of Tele-Communications, the world’s No. 2 cable company, caused cable companies’ and equipment makers’ stocks to rise and Baby Bell stocks to fall Wednesday. A look at winners and losers and what related stocks did:
The Score
Winners
* John Malone. The TCI chief gets a big payday from crafting a canny deal, plus affirmation of his long-held business vision.
* TCI shareholders. A particularly sweet deal and huge gain for those who bought while the stock was languishing little more than a year ago.
* Cable companies. The price put on cable by the deal drives up the stocks of all cable companies.
* Equipment manufacturers. General Instrument and other companies would get to sell lots of high-tech boxes to AT&T.;
Losers
* Baby Bells. Their stocks take a beating because it finally looks like a powerful competitor could emerge in the local phone market.
* AT&T; shareholders. For the short term, they get diluted earnings, a riskier stock and a lower stock price.
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The View From Wall Street
Performance of stocks in key telecom and media sectors:
LONG-DISTANCE
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52-week Wed. close Pct. Stock high/low and change change MCI $58.00/27.31 $57.75, +$0.06 +0.1% Sprint 75.00/44.00 74.06, +0.06 +0.1 WorldCom 48.13/28.00 47.63, --0.31 --0.6 AT&T; 68.50/34.00 60.00, --5.38 --8.2
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LOCAL PHONE SERVICE
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52-week Wed. close Pct. Stock high/low and change change GTE $64.38/40.50 $56.69, --0.81 --1.4% US West 58.00/35.38 48.69, --1.63 --3.2 BellSouth 69.50/43.31 67.00, --2.25 --3.2 SBC Commun. 46.56/26.75 39.75, --1.50 --3.6 Bell Atlantic 106.00/68.00 92.50, --5.88 --6.0
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CABLE TV
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52-week Wed. close Pct. Stock high/low and change change Cablevision Systems $78.88/24.56 $76.00, +14.00 +22.6% Adelphia Commun. 30.75/5.88 33.75, +4.00 +13.4 TCI International 21.25/14.00 19.00, +2.75 +16.9 Tele-Communications A 44.00/14.13 39.75, +1.06 +2.7 Comcast A 40.56/19.63 40.44, +0.69 +1.7 MediaOne Group 41.50/19.81 41.88, +0.63 +1.5
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TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT
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52-week Wed. close Pct. Stock high/low and change change General Instrument $26.75/12.63 $26.13, +2.94 +12.7% Scientific Atlanta 26.13/14.00 24.06, +2.13 +9.7 ADC Telecom 45.00/16.75 35.63, +3.00 +9.2 Tellabs 73.38/42.63 73.38, +4.00 +5.8 Northern Telecom 69.25/39.69 56.06, +2.31 +4.3 Lucent Tech. 82.44/35.25 80.13, +1.63 +2.1
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PROGRAMMING
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52-week Wed. close Pct. Stock high/low and change change Time Warner $88.88/45.13 $88.38, +5.13 +6.2% TCI-Liberty 39.88/15.81 38.19, +2.13 +5.9 Viacom Class B 59.38/26.50 56.50, +1.63 +3.0 Walt Disney 128.38/73.81 112.69, +2.94 +2.7
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INTERNET SERVICES
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52-week Wed. close Pct. Stock high/low and change change @Home $54.00/16.63 $51.19, +11.94 +30.4% Infoseek 45.00/4.38 33.50, +3.06 +10.0 Yahoo 152.00/21.63 148.75, +0.69 +0.5 America Online 108.13/26.69 103.94, --2.31 --2.2
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Note: 52-week high prices include intra-day trading on Wednesday.
Source: Times research
