TULSA, Okla. -- Williams Cos.' stock fell as much as 25 percent, its biggest one-day decline in at least 20 years, after the company announced it faces as much as $2.15 billion in debt and costs from the telecommunications business it spun off in April.
Williams delayed reporting fourth-quarter results that were due out today. The company may owe almost $1.4 billion for Williams Communications debt that it backs if Williams's credit rating falls below investment grade, spokesman Jim Gipson said. It also faces $750 million in fiber-optic network lease agreements if Williams Communications can't pay them.
``While we have valued these obligations every quarter since the spinoff, the developments in the telecom industry, Enron and the Global Crossing bankruptcy have caused us to reevaluate our position,'' Chief Executive Officer Steve Malcolm told Bloomberg News.
Shares of Williams fell $5.54, or 23 percent, to $18.60 in midmorning trading after touching $19. The stock had already fallen 32 percent this year.
Williams began building a 33,000-mile fiber-optic network in the mid-1980s after energy sales declined, using some of the right- of-way along its gas-pipeline network. It sold shares in Williams Communications in September 1999 and decided to split the energy and telecommunications business in July 2000 after energy prices soared. Williams Communications sells telephone- and data- transmission services to other telecommunications companies.
