Lehman shakeup

Steve Rosenbush

Woody Young's departure from Lehman Brothers is viewed by some that AT&T may not have any more big deals in the pipeline. Young stepped down Monday as Joseph Gatto, the chairman of the global M&A group, and Ros Stephenson, the co-director of the global financial sponsors group, were named co-directors of Lehman's finance business.

Young, Lehman's senior communications banker, was close to AT&T. But with the closing of the BellSouth acquisition, it's not clear what major acquisitions AT&T would want to make, even if it could. There's always the possibility it will buy a big satellite TV provider, EchoStar or DirecTV, but those deals would be relatively small compared to AT&T's total market cap. Direct has a market cap of $30 billion. AT&T has a market cap of $233 billion. The regulatory climate isn't going to get any looser when it comes to telecom deals, anyway.