According to the Financial Times, Matlin Patterson is assembling a team of “telecommunications industry veterans” to advise them on how to put together its bid for Nortel (NT).

In addition to Dion Joannou, who used to be president of Nortel’s North American operations, the FT said Matlin Patterson has recruited:

Below is a table originally published August 13th, 2007 by Bespoke Investment Group. According to the authors, this screen filtered for "the S&P 500 stocks with less than 25% debt to equity that have the lowest price to book ratios."

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Following last week's approval the Department of Justice, Federal regulators have approved the $28.1 billion merger of Verizon Wireless (VZ) with wireless carrier Alltel (AT) that was announced in June. The combination of both companies creates the nation’s largest wireless carrier with nearly 84 million subscribers, toppling AT&T’s (T) 74.8 million-subscriber base. The merger represents a strategically powerful collection of assets in the communications industry, which despite economic conditions, continues to remain an exciting growth market.

According to the AP, on Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission [FCC] decided to allow Verizon Wireless to move ahead with the merger. There were two partial dissents by the two Democrats on the five-member panel. The FCC attached several conditions to the approval, including a requirement that Verizon continue to honor Alltel’s existing roaming agreements for four years. Verizon’s $28.1 billion acquisition represents the purchase of $5.9 billion in Alltel’s equity, while assuming $22.2 billion of Alltel’s debt.

The Department of Justice approved Thursday the $28.1 billion planned acquisition of Verizon Wireless (VZ) and regional cell phone operator Alltel Corporation (AT). The acquisition, if approved by Federal Communications Commission [FCC] on November 4, will make Verizon Wireless the largest cell phone company operator in the U.S., stripping AT&T (T) of that title. By adding Alltel’s 13.2 million customers, Verizon will bring the total of its subscriber base to some 80 million in 49 states, surpassing AT&T, which at the end of last quarter, had 71.4 million customers.

Q2 FY08 Earnings Call

August 13, 2008, 10:00 AM ET

Each day, Wall Street is flooded with stock research offering a multitude of conflicting investment opinions. As such, TickerMine is not in the business of providing more opinions. We believe that accurate raw data points can be used to gain insight in to the stock selection and valuation process.

67% of Ruby Tuesday's (RT) Have No Customer Waits or Waits Under 10 Minutes

Silicon Valley is left with two major questions in the wake of Verizon's (VZ) announced plan to buy Alltel Corp.(AT):

1. Will the deal help or hurt efforts to pry open America's closed cell phone system to accept any device and any applications?
2. Will Verizon start selling the iPhone (AAPL)?

For techies, the crucial fact is that the combo makes Verizon even more powerful -- especially in Washington, D.C. The deal puts Verizon back ahead of oligopoly tag-team member AT&T (T) as the nation's biggest cell phone operator. (Ailing Sprint (S) is a distant number three; nobody else is big enough to count.)

Verizon Wireless (VZ) said Thursday that it will buy Alltel (AT) to beef up its network for about $28.1 billion.

The deal surfaced on Wednesday via various press reports and Verizon Wireless just made it official (statement).

Just when you thought Verizon (VZ) stock couldn't go any lower, the money rumor mills believes the company is deep in talks to acquire Alltel (AT), the nation's fifth largest wireless carrier, for roughly $27 billion, There are some reasons behind this and there is more to it than meets the eye.

Part of the mystery of all this is that Alltel was only recently taken private by TPG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners in a $27.5 billion deal. That deal, announced in May of last year, closed in November. This isn't helping the multi-year slump of Verizon's stock (see chart below, compliment of Big Charts at Marketwatch.com .

Q1 FY08 Earnings Call

May 15, 2008, 9:00 AM ET

The Federal Communications Commission has released a list of registered bidders for its Jan. 24, 2008 700MHz spectrum auction and Google’s (GOOG) application (under Google Airwaves Inc.), and two ventures backed by Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen – Vulcan Spectrum LLC and Bend Cable Communications LLC – were among the 96 accepted. However, applications from AT&T (T), Qualcomm (QCOM), Alltel (AT), and Verizon Wireless (VZ) were among the 170 deemed incomplete.

They now have an extra week until Jan. 4 at 6 p.m. ET to resubmit short-form applications “having corrected the deficiencies indicated,” the FCC said. This is also the deadline for upfront payments.

See intro to Leading Hedge Funds' Best Ideas. Sold off a bit of the top holdings, but not much.

Top sectors in the portfolio include:
Services 35%
Technology 32%
Financials 22%

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Q3 2007 Earnings Call

October 22, 2007 8:30 am ET

On Monday, August 27, Whole Foods' (WFMI) tender offer for Wild Oats (OATS) ends. This is the last hurdle to the closing of this merger since the FTC's appeal of the merger on antitrust grounds was denied. The merger could close as early as Monday.

Also on Monday, Pediatric Services of America (PSAI) shareholders will vote on a $16.25 per share buyout offer from Portfolio Logic. The deal is expected to close by the end of August.

TRANSCRIPT SPONSOR

Alltel Corp. (AT)
Q2 2007 Earnings Call
August 01, 2007 8:30 am ET

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to set the rules for a significant sale of radio spectrum Tuesday. Most of the 62 megahertz of spectrum, which could generate as much as $15 billion in revenue for the FCC, comes from TV broadcasters making the switch to digital signals from analog. A tentative proposal from the FCC calls for splitting the upper and lower bands, with the upper 32 MHz expected to be broken in three segments, two of which will be sold to a single bidder in effect allowing for a possible national footprint. This spectrum is sought by AT&T and Verizon for enhancing the coverage and speed of their networks. The proposal for the lower 30 MHz has it being broken into smaller segments to be spread across the nation, appealing to small, regional wireless carriers (such as MetroPCS and Alltel) looking to expand. Google recently said it would bid a minimum of $4.6b, as it seeks "wholesale open access" license conditions, meaning there will be no restrictions on the types of devices or applications that can use the spectrum.

While contemplating how to construct a useful commentary that would catch the essence of what is going on in the markets, I recognized that this is not just a US market phenomenon. It is global. Hence, one scenario below covers none US companies.

TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs' private equity unit said Sunday they had agreed to acquire #5 U.S. wireless provider Alltel Corp. for about $27.5 billion. The buyout price, $71.50/share, is about 10% higher than Friday's close of $65.21, and a 23% premium on its price since it was identified as a target in December. The deal is the largest ever buyout in the telecom sector. People familiar with the matter said the deal was rushed through because the buyers needed the liquidity available in today's debt markets in order to finance the deal. They said two other groups, one consisting of Providence Equity and Blackstone, and the other KKR and Carlyle, were expecting the auction to end on June 6, and were surprised by Sunday's announcement. The group will put up $4 billion of its own funds; a Citigroup consortium is making 'bridge' loans of another $600 million. It's unclear how Alltel shareholders will perceive the deal, but in other recent buyout attempts, shareholders have often pushed to reject initial offers in the hopes of something more. TPG founding partner Jim Coulter said in the press release: "Alltel is a great company with a terrific management team... we look forward to working with them to continue to grow one of the nation's premier wireless providers." Other telecom providers whose names have been circulated as possible buyout targets include BCE (KKR and three pension funds) and Sprint-Nextel. Alltel shares are up 5.3% in the pre-market to $68.65; Goldman Sachs shares are up 0.4% to $231.25; Sprint-Nextel shares are up 1.5% to $21.10.