The New York Times’ Ken Belson interviews Qwest CEO Dick Notebaert in what seems to be a new Saturday interview series for the paper. Notebaert doesn’t touch on anything really interesting (such as Qwest’s denial of NSA demands that it hand over calling records, for example) but he does seem to be promoting the telco as a prime candidate for acquisition.
Consider the following question posed by Belson and the answer given by Notebaert:
Q. Might you be more of an acquisition target?
A. If I looked at it as a consultant or an adviser, I would look at Qwest today and say most of the things that made me uncomfortable before are gone. Again, the government — at every level we’re O.K. The debt load’s down, profitability’s up. Everything’s squared away and there’s no threat of bankruptcy, which you might have thought about a few years ago. And the company has solid performance characteristics. And it’s throwing off good cash. It’s profitable. And it’s got a wonderful group of employees. So I don’t think we’re unattractive.
Notebaert is clearly trying to polish the company’s image as a worthy acquisition and that makes sense. After losing its bid to buy MCI, Qwest is kind of stuck in its role as the smallest former RBOC in the nation and with no wireless voice arm, and no video strategy, Qwest has nowhere to go, particularly in comparison to hot-shots AT&T and Verizon.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:14 AM|Comments(0)
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