AT&T Co finally won agreement from NCR Corp for its proposed $7,480m share exchange proposal after it agreed that NCR holders would not get less than $110 a share value provided AT&T’s share price stays above $34.125. AT&T’s shares were off 37.5 cents on the news at $36.75. The merger is expected to take four to five months to complete, whereupon Charles Exley will resign and president Gilbert Williamson will step up to become chairman and head of the combined NCR-AT&T computer business, which will be run from NCR’s Dayton headquarters under the NCR name. The 107-year-old company employs 55,000 people for its $6,000m-a-year turnover; AT&T is estimated to have lost about $200m on computer sales of $2,000m last year, but although the combined computer company is likely soon to surpass the fading Unisys Corp to take fourth place among US computer companies, it is unlikely that annual sales will initially amount to as much as $8,000m because AT&T’s computer business has been fading fast since it announced its $90 a share cash bid for NCR at the end of November. NCR is expected to fire between 5,000 and 6,000 of AT&T’s computer employees – it has about 9,000 people all told and AT&T will try to find other jobs for many of the surplus people. AT&T will pay 40% in cash and 60% in stock if the regulators refuse to allow the deal to go through as a pooling of interests.
