| Wednesday, Monroe, Louisiana-based communications services provider CenturyTel, Inc. (CTL) and Overland Park, Kansas-based Embarq Corporation (EQ) announced the completion of their previously announced tax-free stock-for-stock exchange merger.
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| | | {loadposition contentad} | | | | | Under the terms of the deal, EMBARQ stockholders received 1.37 CenturyTel shares for each share of EMBARQ common stock they owned at closing. The company intends to formally change its name to "CenturyLink, Inc." after shareholder approval. The company's stock continues to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CTL." Though the company's corporate identity will be immediately changed to CenturyLink, customer-facing operations and communications will continue under the CenturyTel and EMBARQ brand names until a full brand conversion occurs later this year. The combined company will serve more than 2.1 million broadband customers, more than 440 thousands video subscribers and about 7.5 million access lines spanning 33 states. Operating and capital synergies are expected to be about $400 million by 2011. Based on operating results of the two companies for the twelve months ended Dec. 31, 2008, CenturyTel would have had combined revenue of more than $8 billion, combined operating cash flow of over $4.2 billion and combined free cash flow of about $1.9 billion. The company expects to maintain the current annual dividend of $2.80 per share. The company anticipates the combination to be accretive to free cash flow per share in 2010, the first full year post-closing. The corporate headquarters of the company will remain in Monroe, Louisiana. CTL closed Tuesday's regular trading at $30.70 and EQ at $42.06.
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