Will this madness never end? I’m sick of the fight over MCI already. MCI is right in my backyard and I’m sure there are a lot of good people working there, but the company is still in shambles. They lost $32M in the most recent quarter, Capellas doesn’t appear to have a compelling story for where MCI is headed and seems to want to wash his hands of the mess by cashing out. Though, I suppose if that were really the case, he’d take the Qwest offer since it’s materially higher.
I’m surprised that Qwest is still fighting for MCI, they obviously want the $5B cash which comes with the acquisition (I guess they’ll figure out some creative way of dealing with almost $5B in debt), but whoever ends up with MCI will be in for a real headache. Even MCI’s chief strategist acknowledges that they are running out of time.
I enjoyed Om’s comparison of Seidenberg and Notebaert to Grumpy Old Men, I think it’s apt. Though at least Lemmon and Matthau were fighting over Ann Margret, not some failing, non-prize of a company. The best thing for VZ and Q shareholders would be for both companies to walk away and leave MCIP to sort out its own problems.