Hung Up on Acquisitions

WorldCom Inc. has become a major player in the telecommunications business by acquiring more than 40 companies since it was founded in 1983. The following are some highlights:

* December 1992: WorldCom Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers engineers the acquisition of Advanced Telecommunications Corp. for $720 million, attracting attention as an aggressive new entrant in a long-distance phone business populated by a few giant companies and hundreds of bit players.

* September 1993: Ebbers strikes gold by emerging as chief executive in a three-way merger with Metromedia Communications, owned by billionaire John Kluge, and Resurgens Communications Corp. The deal, valued at $1.9 billion, according to Securities Data Corp., makes Kluge the largest shareholder of WorldCom.

* August 1994: WorldCom adds a strong international arm with the $705-million acquisition of Culver City-based IDB Communications Group, a provider of satellite and other communications services.

* August 1994: WorldCom, which had relied mainly on buying phone capacity wholesale and reselling it, acquires its own telephone network with the $2.5-billion acquisition of WilTel Communications Systems. WilTel had built an extensive fiber-optic communications network using decommissioned gas pipelines.

* August 1996: WorldCom moves toward the local phone market and the Internet business with the proposed $14-billion acquisition of MFS Communications Co. and Uunet Technologies Inc.