Verizon rings up Debeviose

Verizon Communications Inc. signed two large deals last month. On May 8, the New York telecom giant agreed to sell $2.35 billion of wireless assets to AT&T Inc., and on May 13 it announced it would spin off local wireline operations in mostly rural areas in 14 states and merge them with Frontier Communications Corp., whose managers will control the combined company. Verizon used Jeffrey Rosen of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP on both deals, though Debevoise's William Regner led the firm's team on the wireless sale.

As a partner at O'Melveny & Myers LLP, Rosen represented GTE Corp. on the 1998 merger with Bell Atlantic Corp. that formed Verizon. GTE general counsel William Barr took the same job at Verizon, and Rosen has been Verizon's primary M&A lawyer over the past decade. He handled the legal work on Verizon's 2005 purchase of MCI Inc. for $8.5 billion and with Regner led Debevoise's team on Verizon's $28.1 billion purchase of Alltel Corp. earlier this year. Verizon tapped Morgan Stanley and UBS on the Alltel deal and is using Morgan Stanley's Tom Whayne on the sale to AT&T.

On Frontier, Verizon is using Jack Callaway, Barry Boniface and Gordon Kroft of Barclays Capital and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s Jennifer Nason, Anwar Zakkour and Ben Bernstein.

AT&T is using Eric Krautheimer and Joseph Frumkin of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, which began doing work for SBC Communications Inc. in the 1990s. SBC acquired AT&T in 2005 and took the target's name. Frumkin then represented AT&T the next year on its acquisition of BellSouth Corp., a deal that brought the two owners of Cingular Wireless LLC under one roof. He also counseled Cingular on its $41 billion purchase of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. in 2004. Krautheimer worked on several of those deals and represented AT&T last fall on its $2.8 billion acquisition of Centennial Communications Corp. For banking advice on the purchase of the Verizon assets, AT&T is using Kurt Simon at J.P. Morgan Chase.

Frontier tapped Robert Townsend III, Craig Arcella and George Schoen of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Townsend met Donald Shassian, Frontier's CFO, when he held the same position at Southern New England Telecommunications Corp., which Townsend helped represent on its 1999 sale to SBC Communications Inc. (SBC used Sullivan & Cromwell on the deal.) Townsend represented Frontier in 2006 on its $1.16 billion acquisition of Commonwealth Telephone Enterprises Inc.

Citigroup Inc.'s Eric Medow also worked on both Frontier deals. Evercore Partners Inc. bankers Michael Price, Daniel Mendelow and Chris Kan advised Commonwealth in 2006, and Frontier tapped them along with Evercore's Eduardo Mestre on the Verizon deal.