LITTLE ROCK — Verizon Wireless’ $28.1 billion acquisition of Alltel Corp. is expected to close Jan. 9, the telecom giant said in a regulatory filing Friday.
Verizon said the merger, announced June 5, was still subject to “satisfaction or waiver of the closing conditions set forth in the merger agreement.”
An Alltel spokesman referred questions to Verizon, where spokeswoman Robin Nicol confirmed the closing date but said the company would not comment further until the deal is final.
“We’ll be providing more details at that time,” she said.
Officials at Alltel and Verizon had no immediate comment on the filing.
The acquisition cleared its final regulatory hurdle last month with Federal Trade Commission approval. Earlier, the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department gave their OK to the transaction to create the nation’s largest wireless carrier, with more than 80 million subscribers.
Verizon disclosed last month in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the company had received commitments from eight financial institutions to provide $17 billion in financing for the deal. Verizon will pay $5.9 billion and assume $22.2 billion of Alltel’s debt.
Verizon and Alltel officials announced the deal just seven months after TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners acquired the company.
In August, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam during an appearance in Little Rock that the company would maintain a regional call center at Alltel’s Little Rock campus that eventually could employ up to 1,200, up from the current 800, though far less than the 3,000 Alltel employees in Central Arkansas.
Employees have been on edge about their job security since the merger announcement.
“Will everyone have a job that’s there on that campus today? No,” McAdam said during his appearance last summer. “These mergers are built on synergies and the synergies involve eliminating redundancies.”
However, he said Alltel’s talented work force was one thing that made the acquisition attractive, and that he wants to keep that talent within Verizon, although that could require employees to relocate.
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. and Gov. Mike Beebe and others have encouraged Verizon to locate other assets in the state.
