AT&T Corp. (T.N), the largest U.S. long-distance telephone company, filed on Wednesday to raise as much as $100 million in an initial public offering for a tracking stock to represent its wireless services business. The company did not say how many shares it plans to offer or in what price range in the preliminary prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those details are expected in future filings.
The prospectus is likely a place-marker for the wireless concern as AT&T is expected to float up to 19 percent of the wireless division to the public which could raise up to $10 billion making it one of the largest IPO's in U.S. history.
With about 12 million subscribers, AT&T Wireless had about $5.5 billion in revenue and $44 million in net income for the nine-month period ended Sept. 30, the filing showed.
The company did not specify what it planned to do with the proceeds from the IPO nor under what symbol it will apply to trade its shares of the tracking stock.
AT&T Wireless, based in Redmond, Wash., has at its core its digital wireless network as well as all wireless networks, operations, cell sites, retail operations, wireless customer care facilities and customer location assets.
Through partnerships, affiliations and its own networks AT&T Wireless Group's built network covers about 64 percent of the U.S. population, according to the prospectus.