Randall Stephenson on Time Warner acquisition
From Randall Stephenson, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, AT&T · · Boston College Chief Executives Club
“We've been investing a lot to make this happen and as we think about building out these kind of capabilities invariably we will build out these kind of capabilities and somebody will make a lot of money to you know taking advantage of these capabilities Apple did quite well off the mobile internet when we made the internet mobile right and the iPhone came along and we really believed as you begin to build the capability to distribute premium video and people will consume premium video there's going to be a whole new distribution Avenue for media companies and we were kind of the naysayers that media companies were in decline we actually thought if you create this kind of distribution media companies will probably become more valuable over time we thought we should own some premium video and so we worked with Time Warner Jeff bukas and I reached an agreement to acquire it and I won't go into the legal dogma but it was a vertical merger and we looked at this and no competitors would be taken out of the market we did our analysis and for 50 years there has not been one of these really challenged and successfully challenged in the courts and so we entered into the deal and after a year of review the United States government decided that this had antitrust they contend that it has antitrust implications and so they have filed to sue AT&T and Time Warner to block the merger and so we are in the middle of that process and we have a court date set for March 19th and Judge has been selected we're in the DC Circuit Court and we'll be going to trial on March 19th and and the government will have to put on their case that's the interesting part about a vertical merger burden of proof is on the government they will have to demonstrate in a court of law that this does have antitrust implications and will substantially reduce competition and increase prices and so the burden of proof is on them and so we'll be defending that three-week trial and hopefully we'll get a verdict and an order early in the spring late spring”
On , Randall Stephenson, Former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at AT&T, spoke about Time Warner acquisition during Randall Stephenson, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, AT&T on Boston College Chief Executives Club.
About Randall Stephenson
Randall Stephenson, former chairman and CEO of AT&T, has spoken publicly about the company's strategy regarding its proposed merger with Time Warner, 5G technology, and broader economic policy. In 2016 testimony before a Senate subcommittee, Stephenson argued that the merger would benefit consumers by providing more choices and lower-priced options, and he stated that AT&T would not withhold Time Warner content to disadvantage competitors. He also said that AT&T had been the largest investor in the United States for five consecutive years and that he expected that to continue. At the 2019 FinTech Ideas Festival, Stephenson discussed the potential of 5G networks, stating that the technology would enable precise location tracking of devices within centimeters, which he said could change how authentication and identity are handled in digital transactions. Stephenson has also addressed social and political issues. In a 2018 interview, he discussed a 2016 speech he gave to AT&T employees about Black Lives Matter, saying he was glad it went viral because it initiated conversations about race within the company and among other CEOs. On economic policy, he stated in 2016 that a 2% growth rate was "unacceptable" and called for tax reform and the approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to stimulate growth. He also noted that regulatory and tax policies had influenced AT&T's investment decisions, including its expansion into Mexico.