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Change Your Life! |
AT-and-T Wireless makes strong debut, but fails to distract investors from inflation |
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April 29, 2000
NEW YORK, APR 28 (UNB/AP) - Shares of the new AT-and-T Wireless Group made a strong debut, offering further encouragement for jittery investors, though not quite distracting them from their preoccupation with inflation and interest rates.
A day after AT-and-T pulled off the biggest initial public offering in U.S. history in a market with sudden disdain for IPOs, investors wasted no time in embracing the wireless "tracking" stock as it hit the open market Thursday.
Trading under the symbol "AWE," the new stock rose 8 percent from the IPO price of dlrs 29.50 set late Wednesday, when AT-and-T sold 360 million of the wireless shares for a combined dlrs 10.62 billion.
The shares closed at dlrs 31.87 1/2 on the New York Stock Exchange after peaking at dlrs 32.18 3/4 amid near-record volume.
Just short of 125 million shares changed hands on Thursday, the second-busiest day ever for a stock trading on the NYSE.
The one-day record of 136.85 million was set earlier this year by another company spawned by Ma Bell, the network equipment maker Lucent Technologies.
Despite the warm reception for AT-and-T Wireless, the broader market fell sharply during the day after a government unemployment report aggravated concerns about rising inflation and interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average fell as many as 197 points before rebounding and finishing the day down 57.40, at 10,888.10.
AT-and-T officials beamed over the new child, which will use about dlrs 7 billion of the money raised in the IPO to beef up its network for intense competition in the wireless industry.
"We're pleased, particularly in a challenging market," said Charles Noski, AT-and-T's chief financial officer, noting that planning for the IPO began back in December, "before the market melted down, before stocks declined on average 20 to 25 percent."
While some had feared AT-and-T might need to postpone the IPO until the mood turned more positive again, the company "never gave very serious consideration to delaying or pulling the offering," Noski said.
The wireless "tracking" stock gives holders a stake in the financial performance of the company's mobile phone business, as well as new initiatives using the airwacapacity and geographic reach. Meanwhile, about dlrs 1 billion will be spent this year and next to upgrade the network with new technologies that can deliver mobile Internet services that are far more robust than the current equipment provide.
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