Century Telephone Enterprise Inc’s $1.5bn cash acquisition of Pacific Telecom Inc announced back in June (CI No 3,182), has now been completed. The takeover has doubled Century’s size and made it the tenth largest US local exchange and cellular operator. Century is taking on $725m of Pacific’s debt, and claims that the interest on the combined debt will not dilute earnings in 1997, and will be accretive from then on. The deal has been funded from a sale of shares in Brooks Fiber Properties Inc worth $202.7, which was taken over by Worldcom Inc, and through the extension of bank debt.