RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson will keep running the communications and entertainment giant through “at least” 2020, the company announced early Monday.
Keeping Stephenson, who led the megameger with Time Warner, is part of a three-year strategy the conglomerate announced in response to pressure from activist investor Elliott Management. AT&T also plans to revamp its board, look to sell some assets and strive to improve profitability.
In a statement, Elliott Management praised the strategy.
“We have closely evaluated the company’s three-year plan and support the steps toward a faster-growing, more profitable, focused and shareholder-friendly company. The combination of AT&T’s improving business performance, consistent and faster revenue growth, significant margin expansion and enhanced capital return will generate meaningful earnings and cash flow growth over the next three years,” Elliott said in the reaction shared with The Hollywood Reporter.
“In addition, AT&T will continue to refresh its board … Altogether, we are confident this will yield significant share price upside at AT&T.”
Under pressure from Elliott, AT&T said it would “refresh” its board.
“The company also said that it expects Stephenson to remain CEO through at least 2020,” AT&T added.
In explaining the three-year plan, Stephenson noted:
“The objectives we have outlined today have been central to our plans for many months, even before we closed our acquisition of Time Warner. But, as you would expect, our thinking has also benefited from our engagement with our owners, including Elliott Management.
“I’ve found our engagement with Elliott to be constructive and helpful, and I look forward to continuing those conservations. These are smart people who very much appreciate the opportunity we have to create tremendous shareholder value.”
The AT&T plan calls for what it desribed as a “continued disciplined review of portfolio,” and added that it cluded “no major acquisitions.”
Read more about the plan online.
