The rise and fall of WorldCom important dates
WorldCom:
1983 —Businessmen Murray Waldron and William Rector sketch out a plan to create a discount long-distance provider called LDDS (Long-Distance Discount Service).
1985 — Early investor Bernard Ebbers becomes chief executive officer of LDDS.
1989 — LDDS becomes public through the acquisition of Advantage Companies.
1992 — LDDS merges in an all-stock deal with discount long-distance service provider Advanced Telecommunications.
1993 — LDDS acquires long-distance providers Resurgens Communications Group and Metromedia Communications in a three-way stock and cash transaction that creates the fourth-largest long-distance network in the United States.
1994 — LDDS acquires domestic and international communications network IDB Communications Group in an all-stock deal.
1995 — LDDS acquires voice and data transmission company Williams Telecommunications Group (WilTel) for $2.5 billion cash and changes its name to WorldCom.
1996 — WorldCom merges with MFS Communications Company (MFS), which owned local network access facilities via digital fiber optic cable networks in and around major U.S. and European cities, and UUNet Technologies, an Internet access provider for businesses.
1998 — WorldCom completes three mergers: with MCI Communications ($40 billion) — the largest in history at that time — Brooks Fiber Properties ($1.2 billion) and CompuServe ($1.3 billion).
1999 — WorldCom and Sprint agree to merge. WorldCom shares peak at more than $64.
2000 — U.S. and European regulators block the proposed merger with Sprint; WorldCom and Sprint terminate their merger agreement.
2001 — WorldCom merges with Intermedia Communications, a provider of data and Internet services to businesses.
2002