Ed Whitacre, having realized his dream to put together AT&T (well almost) is walking into the sunset, ready to hang up his gun sling, and enjoy life. The AT&T CEO is going to hand over the reins of the sprawling Ma Bell Empire to his longtime heir apparent Randall Stephenson on June 3, 2007.
An industrial engineer from Texas Tech University, he started off at Southwestern Bell, and climbed his way to the top, becoming the CEO of SBC Communications in 1990. Since then an aggressive acquisition strategy outlined by Whitacre saw SBC gobble up its Baby Bell peers – Pacific Bell, Ameritech, and BellSouth – and others like AT&T and Cingular Wireless. In its most recent quarter, AT&T had $28.97 billion in revenues and $2.85 billion in profits.
Widely regarded a tactician, with a can-do-cowboy attitude, Whitacre was viewed as a worthy (and to be feared) comptetitors by others.
It is as good a time for him to retire. The company, just reported a stellar quarter, and even the much maligned U-Verse is seemingly doing better. In 2006, the stock was up 40%. There is a glow of pink around the company. It is also now the largest broadband provider in the U.S. The company has done a good job of creating an earnings momentum through margin improvements, cost cutting and superior management.
“I leave with complete confidence in the future of our great company… Randall Stephenson is an exceptional leader. He has a deep understanding of this business and a clear sense of where it should go.”
However significant challenges remain. The pitched battles with cable operators are only going to get bloodier. There is high risk going forward for the company as it keeps losing voice customers to its cable rivals. And there is the whole net neutrality mess that some say Whitacre started, sure to account for lots of billable hours on Capitol Hill.
Its broadband business, benefiting from discount plans, will come under strain as cable operators use bandwidth speeds as leverage. There are rumblings that the video-DSL based solutions might be slow to roll out, mostly due to technology challenges, none of AT&T’s making. Maybe it is time for Stephenson to handle the future problems.
I will miss the “freeloader” type comments.
I was thinking exactly that – the colorful commentary from him.
I went to the stockholder’s meeting today in San Antonio.
No one in the media picked this up: Ed pulled an iPhone out of his suit pocket and talked about the fact that he already had 1,000,000 of these on order.
I was surprised to see how many “old” people were there. Lots of little old ladies, lots of retirees, lots of union folks. Very colorful and interesting crowd.
Also, a nice touch. Ed was hanging out in the lobby saying hi to people.
What has been great for T shareholders, and for Ed’s personal bank account, has been a disaster for the American people.
I have to wonder if most Americans realize they live in a third world nation when it comes to broadband quality, speed, and prices. Every year the US slips further behind more and more countries in broadband, and it’s the fault of people like Ed Whitacre.
Shame on a man who made so much money for reducing competition, raising prices, and retarding innovation…especially in such an important, vital part of economic inftrastructure as broadband access.