AT&T Hires Bankers to Advise Asset Sales

Apparently, AT&T Inc. has hired bankers to advise it on selling assets, in a significant step aimed at winning government approval for its planned $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA.

The U.S. telecommunications giant hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch to line up buyers of customers and wireless spectrum. The assets sales could be worth $8 billion or more, the people said, based on internal analyses of the customer markets that might have to be shed to gain regulatory approval. The deal could be green-lighted by the end of the first quarter of 2012. Still, analysts say the deal faces tough regulatory scrutiny and completion is far from guaranteed. To win antitrust approval for the deal, which would combine the second and fourth-largest U.S. wireless-phone companies, AT&T will likely need to sell off network assets that would otherwise give the combined company too much market power. Most of the divestitures are expected to come from T-Mobile's holdings although AT&T may elect to sell some of its own properties in certain markets.