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The fate of Worldcom will be decided by the bankruptcy courts and Worldcom's bond-holders. The current stock will be even more worthless when it is wiped out and new shares are issued to it's debtors. MCI will survive as an intact unit and will be sold off to one of the baby bells. It's remaining assests will be sold off to the highest bidder.

Telecom is a scary place to be right now, and it is going to get worse before it gets any better. This isn't the first industry to have a big build up and a big bust. Railroads, automobiles, pocket calculators....they all rode the same trail...the same one that the surviving telecoms are traveling now.

I agree, WorldCom will NOT survive in it's present state. It will go Chapter 11, and re-emerge as something much more leaner, with a much more specific business model.

I look to see much of the non-UUNET and non-MCI assets being sold off first. Of course, I don't have access to the numbers that Sidgmore does, so my statements are pure speculation.

If WorldCom can survive with MCI and UUNET, I'd say the next step would be a massive consolidation of the units, removing repetative units within the two groups. Many reorganizaitons of the business structure, and the elimination of many of the already top-heavy management within the company. Not just executives, but VP's, Directors, and Senior Mangers.

If WorldCom can not survive with both MCI and UUNET, my money would be on the selling of MCI. While both are money makers, the UUNET division has continually displayed greater growth and income levels then MCI. Plus, UUNET has strong 'personal' ties with Sidgmore, as it was his baby he grew before Bernie and Co. destoryed it. Maybe Sidgmore can deal selling the MCI customer base while keeping network assets, similar to what was done with the CompuServe deal between WorldCom and AOL, further strengthening the UUNET division. Sidgmore has made repeated statements regarding taking WorldCom back to 'core business' and refocusing on this. Sidgmore is most experienced with data communications, not telco.

Without MCI or UUNET, WorldCom is toast. Bernie Ebbers turned WorldCom into a collection of companies that were no longer able to be industry leaders in their area of specialty, instead making it a company that did many things at mediocre at best. I suspect Sidgmore is going to bring WorldCom back to doing one or two things as it's business core, so that it can once again regain it's ability to become an industry leader.

The other thing Sidgmore MUST do if the company is expected to survive is clean house. Too many of Bernie's hand picked cronies still around, who did business his way. Perhaps he's keeping his cards close to his chest right now, waiting for the internal investigation to complete to give him the ammunition he needs to do this. And not only at the executive level, but up and down the entire chain of command. Too many lower level management people have taken their lead from Bernie's cronies and have the same lack of morales when running their units.

I don't foresee WorldCom being able to avoid Chapter 11. Which is going to be a real killer to present investors as well as employee's who were recently laid off and won't get their severance packages. But, Chapter 11 is not the end of the world as far as a company being able to survive. Many companies have done it, and came out a survivor. The key is going to be what Sidgmore does during this time to make the company viable. He can take the ball and run with it, or drop the ball entirely.