AT&T plans to lay off 5,000 employees

In a continued attempt to reduce its costs, AT&T announced yesterday that it planned to lay off 5,000 employees this year.

The company said it would take a charge of about $1 billion, before taxes, in the fourth quarter of 2001 to cover the costs of these layoffs and the costs of having already laid off 5,100 employees.

Willamette rejects Weyerhaeuser offer

NEW YORK >> Willamette Industries Inc. yesterday rejected a sweetened $6 billion acquisition offer from rival Weyerhaeuser Co., signaling a possible end to a 15-month-long hostile takeover battle.

Willamette's rejection initially sent its shares tumbling as much as 12.3 percent as investor feared a deal with Weyerhaeuser was unlikely.

The stock rebounded somewhat after Weyerhaeuser said it was not dropping its fight yet, but still closed down $4.21, or 8.4 percent, at $45.75 on the day.

Weyerhaeuser responded by vowing to launch a shareholder proxy fight to gain three additional seats on Willamette's nine-member board, setting the stage for a second acrimonious shareholder battle between the two companies.

Combined with the three seats it won at the company's annual meeting last year, a second victory would give Weyerhaeuser control of Willamette's board and more flexibility to negotiate a friendly merger.

In other news . . .

SAN FRANCISCO >> Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices, fierce rivals in the market for microprocessors, are expected Monday to announce their fastest-ever chips, analysts said, continuing the pair's long rivalry. Advanced Micro Devices will debut its Athlon XP 2000+, which runs at 1.67 gigahertz, or 1.67 billion cycles a second, while Intel will unveil its new Pentium 4 chip running at 2.2 gigahertz, analysts said.