NEW YORK-SBC Communications Inc. and Pacific Telesis Group have filed jointly a request that the California Public Utilities Commission review their proposed merger.
Under the merger proposal, Pacific Bell, the local exchange carrier serving 75 percent of California phone customers, would become a subsidiary of the combined company, to be known as SBC Communications, instead of a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pacific Telesis.
Pacific Bell’s operations would remain substantially the same, with the company continuing as a stand-alone utility subject to continuing oversight by the CPUC, according to Phil Quigley, chairman and chief executive officer of Pacific Telesis, and Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of SBC.
Quigley and Whitacre urged California regulators to approve the merger, which they said is important to the future ability of Pacific Bell to serve California customers.
A merged SBC would add at least 1,000 new jobs they said. A key reason for the expected job additions, the companies said, is the fact that PacTel and SBC don’t have overlapping operations, as is the case in some mergers where the redundancies result in massive layoffs.
The new SBC will headquarter its long-distance, international and Internet operations in California. The combined companies’ administrative and support services also will be in California.
