AT&T, Yahoo! Grab 37 Percent of Net2Phone AT&T, Yahoo! Grab 37 Percent of Net2Phone Paul Jones
Acknowledging the future of IP telephony, a consortium led by AT&T and Yahoo! Inc. Friday took stakes totaling 37 percent in Net2Phone Inc. worth almost $1.6 billion.
Joining AT&T will be British Telecom and Liberty Media. The AT&T-led group will purchase 4 million Class A shares from Net2Phone (NTOP) at a price of $75 per share.
In addition, the consortium will purchase 14.9 million Class A Net2Phone shares from IDT Corp. (IDTC), Net2Phone's controlling shareholder, for $75 per share. Following these transactions, the consortium will have a 32 percent stake worth about $1.4 billion. Their stake carries 39 percent of the voting rights.
AT&T (T) will invest $725 million, giving it a a 51 percent interest in the group.
In its deal with Yahoo! (YHOO), Net2Phone sold the portal approximately 2.8 million shares of its common stock in exchange for approximately 806,000 shares of Yahoo! common stock worth $150 million.
