Verizon XO Communications Deal

Bloomberg News

XO Deal With Verizon Not a Big Winner for Carl Icahn - Carl Icahn is about to see something from his 15-year effort to revive XO Communications, which reached a deal to sell its fiber-optic network business to Verizon Communications Inc.VZ +0.41% for $1.8 billion.

But not a big something. The billionaire investor, who took control of the company after its 2002 bankruptcy filing, said the deal “does not represent a significant annualized return on our investment.”

Mr. Icahn started buying debt of network operator XO Communications in 2001, a year before the Internet bubble casualty ended up in bankruptcy. He ended up with control of the firm afterward as the company–and peers–worked through the aftermath of building far more network capacity than was needed at the time.

It’s been “a bumpy road” since XO emerged from bankruptcy in 2003, Mr. Icahn said. In addition to grappling with XO’s operational issues, the investor weathered various legal challenges over the years from XO minority shareholders looking to block his deal-making efforts.

The Verizon deal represents “the best achievable outcome for the company’s customers, employees and owner” in today’s environment,” said Mr. Icahn, who in 2011 said he had spent more than a $1 billion buying XO preferred shares.

Still, the deal is richer than the bids of around $1 billion XO fielded for its assets in 2008, according to a 2009 Wall Street Journal story. And it includes an option for Verizon to lease available XO wireless spectrum and possibly buy it by the end of 2018.