Yesterday I closed the books on the non-stop nonsense that was VOOM. Today I extend that same courtesy to the Fixed Line Freaks from MCI, Qwest and Verizon.
In case you missed the memo, Verizon (as written here previously) came back to MCI with an offer 0f $26 bucks a share (less of course than Qwest's $30) and as expected, MCI took it.
That's right folks. The days of taking the best offer for your shareholders is now officially over. It is now chic to except less (4 bucks I guess is the baseline) for your company. I know, I know, Qwest is under a mountain of debt and everybody loves Verizon's $99B in market cap, but the bottom line is the MCI's board did a lousy job of negotiating this deal. As a matter of fact they owe Qwest a great big thank you (in lieu of the F-you they gave them) for driving up the price. If it wasn't for Qwest MCI's shareholders would have limped away under Verizon's first offer (low 20's).
As a result of this maneuver, the Hawk is adding an award (given to the lamest move by an executive/company/board) to bizpinions.com. I'm calling it the Enron Prize (I'm actually commandeering the name from Houston based Enron, who actually gave out an Enron Prize in the late 90's to world humanitarians. Shockingly, it is no longer give out). The first Enron Prize goes to MCI CEO, and master negotiator, Michael Cappelas. If this guy is sitting at your poker table, he's the sucker.
Hawk's View: Qwest, Public Citizen and several other "consumer" groups will sue to try to stop this deal but they will lose. Verizon will swallow up MCI and Qwest will be left twisting in the wind looking longingly for another partner. Maybe they can team up with Charter and form the world's most leveraged company...
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