STEVE YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): WorldCom's buyout of MCI will crowd the leader AT&T; on virtually every front. The combined company would be an even stronger number-two in U.S. long- distance. It would create the second biggest around the world carrier of voice, and it would have more Internet backbone than practically any other company.</s>YOUNG: Well, it was, at the time, the biggest in history. It started out being a $30 billion deal. But it was an all stock deal. So the value changed as the value of WorldCom's stock changed. And it wound up being a $37 billion deal.</s>YOUNG: MCI says it carefully considered GTE's all-cash $45 per share bid, but felt WorldCom and MCI had more complimentary strengths and the same business culture.</s>ERIC STRUMINGNER, TELECOMMUNICATIONS ANALYST, PAINEWEBBER: With WorldCom you get business people running a telecom business, not telecom people running a telecom business. And I've always thought that that was one of the biggest differences between WorldCom and its major competitors.</s>YOUNG: The combined company will have 22 million customers and 70,000 employees. It would have revenues of $32 billion and a market capitalization of $60 billion, right out of the box.</s>YOUNG: As years went by, they also decided they needed wireless. They wanted Sprint, and U.S. government regulators considered that deal for a long time. In the end, that very important deal strategically to WorldCom was blocked because of government concerns.
CNN 20: WorldCom Takeover of MCI