Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 17, 1994 TAG: 9402170089
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Fred Shaftman, president of BellSouth Communications Systems, said Wednesday the Roanoke plant will restrict its business to the nine states where its Atlanta-based parent, BellSouth Corp., also provides local telephone service.
The decision to sell the company's national sales and service operations, he said, represents a strategy change for the company: It will limit its business to places served by the parent telephone company - Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky.
WilTel has agreed to acquire all of the equipment sales and service operations for equipment housed in customers' facilities in 29 other states.
The acquisition gives WilTel a presence in northeastern, mid-Atlantic and Western states, said Henry Hirsch, president and chief operations officer of that company. "It allows us to more efficiently employ our national sales and service" operations.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Shaftman said sale of the national division will affect jobs now held by about 43 percent of the Roanoke plant's 1,860-person work force. Those 800 people will become WilTel employees when the deal closes, probably in mid-March.
Most of them will be offered jobs in Houston, Shaftman said, but he is certain the company will take advantage of the opportunity to eliminate duplication, and some of them "may end up not having a job."
It will take about 30 days for the full impact of the layoffs to be determined, Shaftman said.
The BellSouth plant will remain as it is in Roanoke, he said, but with fewer employees.
"A large majority of our customers are inside the region, and that's also where we enjoy our greatest brand-name recognition," Shaftman said. "By concentrating in our core area, we can better serve our customers."
WilTel, which has about 1,750 employees, is a national distributor of communication equipment, offering a full range of sales, installation, maintenance, facilities management, design and related services.
It is the largest distributor of Northern Telecom Meridian PBX switchboard systems and the only national distributor of the systems.
After acquisition of the BellSouth business, WilTel also will enter a long-term agreement to distribute the full line of NEC products nationally.
WilTel Communications Systems is a subsidiary of WilTel Inc., a full-service telecommunication company that offers data, voice and video products and services. WilTel owns and operates a nationwide digital fiber-optic network, one of only four in the country, with access to more than 30,000 system miles.
WilTel is one of The Williams Cos. Inc., a $5 billion corporation based in Tulsa, Okla., that also operates three interstate pipelines and major natural gas gathering and processing facilities.
BellSouth Communications Systems specializes in the sale, installation, support and maintenance of multiline telephone equipment, including switchboard exchanges, voice-processing systems and ancillary equipment.
by CNB