Re: Long-Term AT&T Investors

It is not all that uncommon in the business world for the acquirer to
> take the name of the acquired company. Phil Anshutz's (he of Qwest > fame, among many other businesses) Denger and Rio Grande Western > Railroad acquired that Southern Pacific Company, parent of the > Southern Pacific Railroad (which had long since divested Sprint). > Then he changed the name of the company to Southern Pacific. (Also of > historic interest only, since the Union Pacific Railroad acquired > Southern Pacific and dropped the name). > NationsBank, formerly NCNB National Bank, and before that North > Carolina National Bank, acquired Bank of America and then changed its > name to Bank of America.>>

Or in the recent case of SBC (formerly Southwestern Bell Corporation) [not to be confused with SBC for Seattle's Best Coffee, a division of Starbucks] buying AT&T and taking on the name of the rechristened company as at&t (just "lower casing" themselves and ditching the death star in favour of a blue marble.)

Then again there are other cases where a name change was affected -- MCI (Microwave Communications Incorporated) becoming Worldcom, but more than likely Worldcom was not a favourable name after the higher level hijinx with "creative" accounting bankrupted the original corporation so they changed their corporate name to that of the acquired entity (perhaps thinking that the public was too stupid to notice that it was still the same entity that screwed them out of their investment if they invested in the company.)

MCI hasn't dealt with microwave in *years* and AT&T hasn't had much of anything to do with telegraph either for that matter either.