LITTLE ROCK-Alltel Corp. announced it has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire Aliant Communications Inc. in a deal valued at $1.5 billion.
Under terms of the agreement, each share of Aliant will be exchanged for $39.13 of Alltel stock, within a range of .67 to .75 shares of Alltel stock for each share of Aliant. The transaction will be accounted as a pooling of interests.
According to Joe Ford, Alltel chairman and chief executive officer, the merger will expand Alltel’s footprint to the entire state of Nebraska, where Aliant offers wireless and wireline voice, long-distance, Internet and paging services.
Specifically, Aliant boasts 290,000 wireless phone customers, 10,000 paging customers and 15 retail stores, as well as various wireline assets. The merged company will have $5.3 billion in annual revenues, $9.5 billion in assets and cover about 52 million wireless pops.
Alltel also announced it plans to acquire all the assets of Durango Cellular Telephone Co. in Durango, Colo.
