BellSouth sale to AT&T approved
BellSouth Corp. shareholders Friday approved the proposed sale of their company to AT&T Inc. for $67 billion in stock. AT&T shareholders later voted to issue new stock in the combined company.
The deal would expand the reach of the nation’s largest telecommunications provider and put the two companies’ wireless joint venture, Cingular, under one roof.
The BellSouth vote during a special meeting in Atlanta was 97 percent in favor of the deal, which was announced March 5 and is expected to close by the end of the year.
Federal and state regulators also must approve the deal. Once the deal is completed, the BellSouth and Cingular names will be phased out.
•The former chief executive of Pep Boys, who resigned this week amid shareholder pressure, will be getting $2.7 million to leave.
Larry Stevenson will get his annual base salary of $1 million, plus another $1.7 million to buy out his vested stock options that have made money, according to a filing the company made late Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Interim CEO Bill Leonard, the chairman of the board, will be receiving a salary of $83,333 a month, or nearly $1 million a year. Pep Boys is searching for a permanent successor for Stevenson.
Leonard will not be getting his normal compensation as a member of the board, but he will be getting his stock grants under Pep Boys’ stock incentive plan, according to the filing.
The company’s two largest shareholders, Barington Cos. Equity Partners LP in New York and Pirate Capital LLC in Norwalk, Conn., have been upset that Stevenson hasn’t engineered a better turnaround at the struggling retailer.
•Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, seeking to finish the massive tire recalls it began six years ago, said Friday it would notify owners to bring in 200,000 recalled tires that may still be on vehicles or used as spares.
The Nashville-based subsidiary of Japan’s Bridgestone Corp., said about 95 percent of the 6.5 million tires recalled in the 2000-01 tire recall had been replaced.
But the tiremaker will ask registered owners of Ford Explorer, Mercury Mountaineer and Mazda Navajo sport utility vehicles, many of which have the tires as original equipment, along with Firestone stores and dealers to check for the recalled tires.
“Even though there are only a small percentage of these tires believed to be still in use, we are continuing to put safety first and are implementing this communications campaign to try to reach out to a group of consumers whose tires have not yet been recovered,” said Mike Kane, the company’s vice president of quality assurance.
The affected tires include the P235/75R15 Radial ATX and certain P235/75R15 and P255/70R 16 Wilderness AT models manufactured before May 1998. Tires manufactured after that date are not affected, NHTSA said.