New York, June 19: AT&T Wireless Group Corp agreed to acquire wireless systems in San Diego, Houston and the San Francisco Bay area markets, in transactions valued at about $3.3 billion.AT&T Wireless said Vodafone AirTouch PLC is selling the San Francisco property, GTE Corp is selling the San Diego property, and PrimeCo PCS is selling the Houston property. AT&T expects about 1,400 employees will join it as a result of the transaction, and said the deal may shave two cents to three cents a share off AT&T common stock earnings.
The boards of all three sellers approved the deals, which are expected to close around the time of the Bell Atlantic Corp - GTE merger and before the end of the year.
Bell Atlantic is in the process of acquiring GTE, and the soon-to-be-combined companies have a wireless venture with Vodafone called Verizon Wireless. As a condition for the approval of the wireless venture, the t
hree companies last December agreed to unload overlapping wireless assets in the US.
--(Reuters)
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