Verizon Communications Inc (VZ) To Sell Assets, Focus On Core Activities

In February it announced the sale of its residential landline assets, in particular to Frontier Communications, worth $10.54 billion.

These businesses, besides facing fierce price competition from companies such as Alphabet and Amazon, have been struggling to keep pace with advances in cloud computing, according to Reuters. (NYSE:VZ). The separation of enterprise assets would be a tough call, and there are no decisions yet made about structuring as yet, sources indicated.

Sources told the news service that Verizon was weighing whether to give up information technology subsidiary Terremark and the telecommunications company MCI, which it bought in 2011 and 2006, respectively. The decision was motivated in an attempt to increase the company's focus on its core activities. No deal has been finalized yet and it is being said that the finalized buyer might have to sign commercial agreements with the company.

News of Verizon considering a sale of its enterprise business comes at a time when a number of the largest traditional wireline players are realigning or rethinking their enterprise service divisions. The company now operates a global network of enterprise customers and offers services in over 140 countries. While Windstream Holdings has completed a sale of its data center business to TierPoint for $575 million. The company stated that they are still working on how to better structure the sale of assets.

Computer World adds that Verizon has been shifting its focus lately to mobile services and connected devices on the Internet of Things. Verizon was also able to unload its tower portfolio worth more than $5 billion.

Though CenturyLink Inc, wireline provider, was having discussion with Verizon with regard to purchase of a few of the assets, the deal could not be finalized. Citigroup, which has been advising America's largest wireless carrier on the possible sale of the assets, has estimated its annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization at around $2bn.