In afternoon trading, Williams rose 3.44 to 28.44 on 14 million shares. Earlier, shares topped 31.5.
The company yesterday sold 29.6 million shares, or a 6.4 percent stake, at $23 each, underwriters Salomon Smith Barney and Lehman Brothers said. The shares, priced at the top of the $21-$23 range, trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "WCG."
Williams Companies, which is spinning off the minority stake, will keep 86 percent of the shares.
Williams Communications has said it plans to raise another $725 million through private placements with Intel, SBC Communications, and Telefonos de Mexico, Mexico's largest telephone company. Those three investors will own 7.6 percent of the shares.
Williams Communications has built about 22,000 miles of a 33,000-mile fiber-optic network that connects 125 cities in North America. Its customers include telephone, broadcast, and Internet companies.
Williams Companies, the largest U.S. natural gas transporter, is spinning off the telecommunications stake to allow investors to value it separately from its energy businesses. Williams owns 27,000 miles of U.S. interstate natural gas lines, other pipelines that carry butane and propane, oil refineries, and about 250 gas stations.
Williams got 23 percent of its $7.7 billion in revenue last year from its communications unit. Williams Companies and Williams Communications are both based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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