Communications

Company I worked for and have stock in

"Other proposed deals that now look safe include Hilton Hotels (HLT), Harrah's Entertainment (HET), TXU (TXU), Alltel (AT) and Clear Channel Communications (CCU)."

If you're extremely bearish on the junk-bonds financing LBO activity, one might consider selling OTM calls on AT against TPG and Goldman's buyout of Alltel as the expected premium on the deal makes a rival bid highly unlikely. KKR's massive debt offering to cover their purchase of First Data has already spooked some investors and a weak response to this transaction could endanger Alltel's upcoming $27bil debt offering, set to be the largest in junk-bond history.

--from FT.com
The Alltel debt is set to include a $3bn chunk of bonds that carry an option to pay quarterly interest in issues of further debt. These bonds, known as a "payment-in-kind option", or "toggle", notes, have also attracted the derogatory nickname of "pay-if-you-can" notes.

21% of the assets of:

WCPIX Profunds UltraSector Mobile Telecomm Inv

which is up: 27.83% on the year.

Downgraded by Lehman Brothers from Overweight to Equal-weight

TELECOM

TAKEOVER TARGET

speculative play on possible M&A

takeover target

Alltel. Another one that had good things going for it but hardly ever moves. It would probably make a good "put".