AT&T Co was always expected to face a long haul if it was to succeed in its hostile bid for NCR Corp, and so it is proving. The phone company faced two minor new setbacks at the end of last week as the NCR share price closed at $92.75, firmly above the $90 a share cash tender offer from AT&T, implying that the market has regained confidence dhat AT&T will have to pay more to succeed, and the whole market has risen by nearly 20% since the bid was launched towards the end of last year. The second setback was that when the tender offer reached its second close on Friday, AT&T had acceptances with respect to 66% of the shares, compared with 70% at the first close on January 16 shareholders that tender their shares are free to withdraw their acceptances until the final close. Resigning itself to the long haul, AT&T has now extended the offer again, this time all the way to April 30.
