Alltel trims jobs, stores as part of Midwest integration

Alltel Corp. plans to cut 150 jobs at the headquarters of recent acquisition Midwest Wireless in Mankato, Minn., by September, and said it will close 10 Midwest stores later this summer.
Alltel said it would keep more than 450 former Midwest employees in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, and that a Mankato call center would remain open. The parent company plans to add sales employees and put a vice president of retail and director of business sales in Mankato, while relocating former Midwest finance, legal, procurement and most marketing functions to Little Rock, Ark., and other Alltel locations. Some of the retail stores will be replaced with indirect agent points of distribution, the company said; about 30 Midwest stores were retained.
Debbie Northington, senior VP of human resources at Alltel, said that the changes came after a five-month-long review of products and operations after Alltel’s purchase of Midwest. The$1 billion acquisition closed in October 2006 and gave Alltel an additional 450,000 customers in former Midwest markets.
Alltel executives have said the company is exploring strategic options, sparking speculation that one of the large national CDMA carriers or private equity companies might purchase the fifth-largest U.S. carrier.