AT&T CEO John Stankeys biggest corporate reversal in history rejects former boss Randall Stephenson
Summary
John Stankey, senior executive vice president of AT&T Inc. merger integration planning, arrives to federal court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, April 30, 2018. AT&T announced Monday it decided to spin off WarnerMedia, merging it with Discovery to form a new media and entertainment company likely worth well over $100 billion. AT&Ts decision to split out WarnerMedia comes less than three years after closing its $100 billion transaction, including debt, is an admission that putting a large content asset with a wireless phone company had few long-lasting synergies. "My job as the CEO of AT&T is to turn out to the employee body, who all have good ideas on how to grow this business and where to take it, and make sure I facilitate those opportunities," Stankey told reporters Monday. "Looking out over the next couple years on these great growth opportunities we have at AT&T, whether its fixed broadband, what we do in wireless and what we can do in growing the media business, it became clear to me that we were going to need a different capital structure to get that done.