• Meanwhile, AT&T has about $150 billion in net debt, making it one of the most indebted nonfinancial companies in the world.

AT&T’s next chief, John Stankey, will reportedly take a different path. He is said to have assured investors that he’ll be more of an operator and less a deal-maker, according to Bloomberg.

The case against banning mergers

Last week, Representative David Cicilline, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, called for a ban on mergers during the pandemic, except for “firms that are truly failing or in bankruptcy.” Noah Joshua Phillips, a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, sent this response to DealBook. (The views expressed his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the F.T.C. or any other commissioner.)

I’m all for stopping anti-competitive M.&A. that cannot be resolved. In the past few months, the F.T.C. has been busy, preventing transactions in the hospital, e-cigarette, coal, consumer products, pharmaceutical and gene sequencing industries, among others. But is a blanket ban warranted now?

The theory that the pandemic requires the government to shut down M.&A. goes something like this: The antitrust agencies are overwhelmed and cannot do the job of reviewing mergers, inviting a rush of companies looking to merge with minimal oversight, exacerbating the problem. The result is that anticompetitive transactions go unnoticed and unchallenged.

The facts are different, in two important ways.

First, while the restrictions related to Covid-19 require serious adjustments at the antitrust agencies — we’re working from home, dealing with remote technology and handling kids just like other workplaces across the country — merger reviews continue. We announced a new e-filing system, temporarily suspended the early termination of straightforward merger reviews and sought voluntary extensions from companies. Within days, we were able to get back to a “new normal.” There may be additional challenges, but we are not sacrificing the thoroughness of our investigations.

Second, there is no evidence that the antitrust agencies are overwhelmed by filings. The Premerger Notification Office estimates a nearly 60 percent reduction in reported transactions during the past month, compared with the historical average. That is consistent with press reports indicating that M.&A. activity is down dramatically because of this crisis. Transactions reported to the F.T.C. also dropped off a cliff during the last recession. The market is funny like that.