JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- The Federal Communications Commission has approved the acquisition of paging company SkyTel Communications Inc. by telecommunications power MCI WorldCom.
The FCC said it had received no comments or documentation from competitors or outside agencies seeking to block the merger. The regulatory agency concluded that the merger would "serve the public interest, convenience and necessity."Ramkrishna Kasargod, an analyst with Morgan Keegan and Co. in Memphis, Tenn., said Thursday that with the level of competition in the telecommunications market, "there was no reason for anyone to oppose this."
Kasargod and Henry Barbour, manager of investor relations for SkyTel, both noted that while SkyTel does make up a great deal of the high-end messaging business, it has only a small percentage of the total paging industry.
"WorldCom has no paging licenses whatsoever ... . With the merger, we just aren't threatening anybody," Barbour said.
Since the Department of Justice gave its blessing in July, all that now stands in the way of the merger is a vote from SkyTel shareholders, expected to take place Sept. 29.
MCI WorldCom, the nation's No. 2 long-distance phone company, and SkyTel, one of the few profitable companies in the paging industry, are both based in the Jackson metro area.
The merger proposal calls for SkyTel shareholders to receive one share of WorldCom Stock for every four shares of SkyTel.
Shares of MCI WorldCom closed Friday at $78.50, while SkyTel shares were unchanged at $20 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, valuing the deal at about $1.2 billion.