Re: Long-Term AT&T Investors

I assume that NCR is for National Cash Register, AV is for Avaya, VZ

> is for Verizon, Q is for Qwest, BLS is for BellSouth, and LU is for > Lucent. (Am I correct?)

Yes.

But, pray tell, what do the stock codes ACR, T, CMCSA, VOD stand for? > And if they aren't "obvious" entities, how would they relate to the > (old) AT&T "Bell System"?

AGR is Agere Systems, a spin-off from Avaya, which was a spin-off of Lucent. Agere is the business that used to be "AT&T Microelectronics" many years ago, and made things like microprocessors and D-to-A converters. T is of course AT&T itself. CMCSA is Comcast, a descendant of AT&T Broadband. VOD is Vodafone Airtouch plc, the mutant offspring of Pacific Telesis and Racal. (The Web page I started this thread with goes through the whole history.)

Also, AT&T used to own a part of Bell Canada, which is now part of > Bell Canada Enterprises.

AT&T's interest in BCE was sold, rather than being distributed to AT&T shareholders, so an AT&T shareholder never received BCE (or NT) stock. Likewise SNET and Cinti Bell. When one company only has an investment in another company, without control, that's usually how it's done. For a majority-owned and controlled subsidiary, there are tax benefits to spinning it to shareholders rather than doing a public offering. (AIUI, in the former case, the shareholders only have to pay taxes when they sell their shares; in the latter, it's treated as a capital gain [or loss] to the parent company at the time of the offering. IANATA, YMMV, etc.)

Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every snipped-for-privacy@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)

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Garrett Wollman
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