ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 24, 1996 TAG: 9609240056
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEWARK, N.J.
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE SEVEN BABY BELLS have been looking to sell the consortium out of fear that project information from one company could be obtained by the others.
Bellcore, the research and development cooperative of the Baby Bells, has been shopping itself around since last year and a likely buyer reportedly has emerged.
The seven regional Bell companies were prepared to sell Bellcore for $700 million to Science Applications International Corp., a defense contractor, according to an article Monday in The Wall Street Journal.
The article said the sale could be announced this week, subject to the approval of the Baby Bells' boards.
``No decision to sell the company has been made at this time,'' said Bellcore spokeswoman Barbara McClurken. Science Applications spokeswoman Jane Van Ryan said the company does not discuss ``reports regarding its business plans or potential business opportunities.''
The Bellcore consortium, whose scientists pioneered fiber-optic technology, was formed in 1984 with the breakup of AT&T Corp. The surviving AT&T retained Bell Labs, and the seven regional phone companies were given joint ownership of the remaining research labs under the Bellcore name.
Competition, however, has grown between the companies, generating concerns that project information from one company could be obtained by the others through the consortium.
Analysts have said selling Bellcore could end bickering and free the lab from regulations that limit the type of work it can do for the Bells.
``They have all kinds of different interests,'' said Steve Balog, director of equity research at Furman Selz in New York. ``I can imagine it would be very, very difficult to get consensus from the Bells when they all have different business strategies.''
Bellcore, formally Bell Communications Research, has a staff of about 5,800 people. The Morristown-based consortium's 1996 budget is more than $1 billion, and most of its work is in communication software engineering and consulting. It has sales and technical offices worldwide.
Science Applications, whose main business is consulting and providing technical advice to the government, employs about 22,000 people worldwide and generated about $2.2 billion in revenue last year.
About 83 percent of its business comes through government contracts, and about 45 percent of that is in the national security area.
The company, which is employee-owned and based in San Diego, owns Network Solutions Inc., a company hired by the National Science Foundation in 1993 to be the official registrar of Internet addresses.
Bellcore's Baby Bell owners are: Ameritech Corp., based in Chicago; Bell Atlantic Corp., in Philadelphia; BellSouth Corp., in Atlanta; Nynex Corp., of New York; Pacific Telesis Corp., in San Francisco; SBC Communications Inc., in San Antonio; and U.S. West Inc., in Englewood, Colo.
Spokesmen for the Bell companies either referred calls to McClurken or said they could not comment on the Journal report.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB