Qwest Is Down, But Not Out
It's like a boxing match where Rocky Balboa keeps getting beaten around the head, but still comes back for more: Qwest, down for a two-count, is punching their way back to another bid to buy MCI, this time at $9.7B, up from their previous jab with $8.9B, and 30% higher than the latest uppercut from Verizon. Mike predicted on April 6 that the battle wasn't over yet, and was right. Qwest sweetened their offer by raising the cash portion of their offer relative to the equity portion, responding to MCI shareholder complaints that equity in VZW was worth far more than equity in Qwest. Strangely, Verizon bought the shares of MCI's largest shareholder, a 13.4% stake, for 111% of the value they placed on the shares through their general offer to MCI shareholders, causing suspicion that Verizon was somehow trying to purchase voting power at the 11% premium in order to secure a better deal from the other MCI shareholders.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
