There's no way losing a couple NSA contacts sends a RBOC generating $4B of cash a year into a $2 stock and near bankruptcy. The way you do that, is you merge a

There's no way losing a couple NSA contacts sends a RBOC generating $4B of cash a year into a $2 stock and near bankruptcy. The way you do that, is you merge a massively unprofitable business into a blue chip one and pay the latter with massively inflated stock (viz: '99 internet bubble). After the bubble bursts, market wakes up, and the assets are found to be dogs. The $4B cash is now going to pay down the massive debts the combined entity took to finance the operating losses of the crappy side of the merger, but there is no growth in the supposedly high-growth part. The high-growth part was not a NSA/gov't driven biz plan, though. That would not have made sense or been credible plan on which to merge or raise capital (before 9/11 in particular). Much easier explanation. According to the SEC/Jury/SupremeCourt etc. Hope that helps.