AT&T says braced for divestitures on T-Mobile deal

BOSTON: The chief executive of AT&T expects to have to sell some assets to gain US regulatory approval for its proposed $39 billion acquisition of Deutsche Telekom unit T-Mobile USA.

"I can't remember a wireless deal of any size that we've done over the past 5 or 6 years where the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission didn't look at certain markets and believe there was too much concentration, and require some kind of divestitures," AT&T's Randall Stephenson said on Wednesday.

"I anticipate we'll have some of that here but I have no idea right now what it will look like," Stephenson told reporters after a speech to Boston College's Chief Executives' Club of Boston.

Stephenson said the huge merger is still on track to close in about a year.

Asked about potential staff cuts once AT&T absorbs T-Mobile, Stephenson said there would be a number of "overlap" functions between the two companies, such as finance and marketing.

"We have very elegant ways of dealing with this," he said.

Copyright Reuters, 2011