AT&T names unit heads post merger

Barring objections from regulators or President Trump, firm expects deal with Time Warner to close by year-end

AT&T Inc named three new divisional chiefs to lead the company when its $85.4 billion (Dh313.4 billion) takeover of Time Warner closes later this year.

As reported earlier by Bloomberg News, John Stankey, who ran AT&T’s DirecTV division, will supervise integration planning for the merger and lead the Time Warner businesses after the deal closes, the company said Friday in a statement. John Donovan, formerly group president for AT&T Technology, will take over the phone and TV businesses. Lori Lee, who runs global marketing, also will lead AT&T’s international units.

AT&T agreed to acquire the owner of HBO and CNN last October. Federal regulators are still mulling whether to green light one of the largest media mergers in recent history. The deal will unite one of Hollywood’s largest TV producers, the legendary Warner Bros., with the mobile and landline phone business that dates back to Alexander Graham Bell. All three will report to Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson. AT&T lost 1 per cent to $39 Friday in New York. The stock is down 8.3 per cent this year.

Barring any objections from antitrust regulators or intervention by President Donald Trump, who has publicly stated opposition to the deal and has an ongoing quarrel with Time Warner’s CNN, AT&T says it expects the deal to close by year-end.

The separation of AT&T’s new divisions will be both geographical and cultural. The plan calls for AT&T to consolidate more of its service operations, like wireless, in its Dallas headquarters, where Donovan will be located.

Donovan, who joined AT&T in the 2008 from internet-security firm VeriSign Inc, gained stature at the phone company by converting its complex, hardware-based network architecture to a system that could be controlled using software and servers. This allowed cumbersome manual functions like increasing network capacity to be more automated and instantaneous, saving time as well as equipment and labour costs. Stankey, who has led nearly every major unit at AT&T in his three-decade career, will run the media division from his California office. The business, comprised mostly of Time Warner, will stay intact with operations in New York and Los Angeles.

Lee joined AT&T’s predecessor company, SBC Communications, in 1997. She was tapped to head up the Time Warner integration effort last December after previously leading the company’s Uverse landline TV and broadband business.