AT&T in talks to appease Elliott: sources

Reports have emerged to suggest the AT&T management team is attempting to reduce pressure from activist investor Elliott Management.

According to Reuters, AT&T has engaged the vulture fund to understand how demands can be met without causing too much disruption to the business or undermining the long-term ambitions of the business.

Elliott Management is pressing AT&T to cut costs, make changes in the management offices and scale back the wider ambitions of the business. One element to the call-to-action from Elliott Management has been to divest non-core assets.

Aside from saving their own jobs, the management team will want to appease the aggression of the vulture fund. With the acquisitions of both DirecTV and Time Warner, the ambition is to diversify revenues, capturing the excitement being generated in the content world. That said, should Elliott Management get its way the AT&T business would be much more commoditised focused almost exclusively on connectivity.

The AT&T business is an interesting one which has polarised opinion. It perhaps has been too cavalier with the cheque book, but few will dismiss the ambition to chase after new revenues. Every forward-looking telco recognises the threat of ignoring diversification and the slow trudge towards commoditisation, though this does not concern Elliott Management.

For Elliott Management, the objective is simple; increase dividend payments and raise share price. Once these two objectives have been met, the team will sell off its stake and collect the profits. This is a mid-term strategy, and it is effective for money men, but it does present a danger to the long-term positioning of AT&T as an influential player in the digital society.

Elliott Management can cause waves, though the ability of the management to control this disruption will give some sort of indication of what AT&T will look like in the future.