Verizon CEO sees Alltel regional HQ, job losses

LITTLE ROCK—Little Rock will get a regional headquarters with about 100 employees when Verizon Wireless completes its purchase of Alltel Corp., and Verizon may expand a call center already in the city, Verizon's chief executive said Thursday.

But the total number of workers would be far from the 3,000 employees that Alltel currently has in Little Rock. Top executive positions are expected to be lost and many midlevel positions could also vanish. In total, Alltel has about 16,000 employees.

Verizon President and CEO Lowell McAdam addressed a crowd of about 700 people in a talk in downtown Little Rock and said he hopes the merger closes by the end of the year. He said it would take another year to assess what -- and who -- stays and goes.

But McAdam also discussed how the territory Alltel serves is a perfect complement to Verizon's turf, showing an overlay on a U.S. map.

"I don't think any other company but Verizon Wireless could have (bought Alltel) and taken it to the next level," McAdam said.

McAdam said that he expects there will be opportunity for many Alltel workers elsewhere within New York-based Verizon if there are not jobs for them in Little Rock. He noted that Verizon, which has 70,000 workers, has purchased $9.3 billion in additional spectrum, which will enable the company to offer new devices and applications.

"We have had our eye on Alltel forever," McAdam said.

But he said Verizon didn't get involved when Alltel was put up for sale a year ago. TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners bought Alltel for $24.7 billion and took on $23 billion in debt. In June, Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. and Britain's Vodafone Group PLC, agreed to buy Alltel for $5.9 billion, after factoring for the debt.

McAdam said Verizon didn't want to get into a bidding war when Alltel was being taken private. In the year since, he said the company grew by 10 percent and sold for about the same price as a year before.

"I know there's concern," McAdam said. "We're not the kind of company that takes our profit and goes home," McAdam said.

U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., introduced McAdam and said the two have had talks about the job picture since the deal was announced.

Afterward, Pryor said he has heard various figures but didn't have an estimate for how many jobs would be lost.

"The reality is we are going to lose a Fortune 500 headquarters here," Pryor said.

Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola said that, once the purchase is final, expected in late November, the city may get a better idea of what the future holds for Alltel workers.

Before going private, Alltel spun off its traditional phone business, creating Windstream Corp., which is headquartered in Little Rock. The landline company has about 8,000 employees, including 1,100 in Arkansas, with 750 in Little Rock.

McAdam spoke as part of the Clinton School of Public Service speaker series.