AT&T sees long DoJ deal reviews as norm
* Sees DoJ slow deal review more norm than exception
* Says slow reviews may slow telecom consolidation talks
* Interest in high growth foreign markets, tough to enter
* AT&T shares down 16 cents at $27.27 on NYSE
(Adds comment on foreign deals, background, shares)
DETROIT, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The head of AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Tuesday that slower U.S. regulatory reviews of acquisitions would likely slow down consolidation talks in the U.S. telecommunications market. AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said the U.S. Justice Department's slower than expected pace of review of AT&T's proposed Centennial Communications Corp CYCL.O purchase would likely be commonplace.
"I suspect this may be more of a norm than an exception right now. That in itself might cause some to rethink any kind of significant acquisitions," Stephenson told reporters after his presentation at the Detroit Economic Club.
While AT&T had originally expected to close its $944 million Centennial deal in the second quarter, it said recently that it now expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter. Stephenson did not update this target on Tuesday.
A longer review process could slow down any consolidation talks in the U.S. telecommunications sector, he said.
Stephenson described the Centennial review process at the Department of Justice as a "surprisingly long, very extensive review of what's in relative terms a fairly small transaction."
Stephenson made the comments against the backdrop of widespread speculation that a new wave of consolidation could happen in the telecom market including deals involving Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE), which owns T-Mobile USA.
Sprint Nextel (S.N) has been linked with T-Mobile USA in recent reports but many analysts have said such a deal could be too difficult to integrate.
Analysts have also long speculated that companies such as MetroPCS (PCS.N) and Leap Wireless International Inc (LEAP.O) are due for consolidation.
Stephenson said that he was hearing the same rumors about consolidation talks.
"The Justice review and the FCC review process will probably cause a lot of these discussions to slow," he said.
AT&T itself, the country's biggest telephone company and the second-biggest cellphone provider, is not expected to be able to make any more big acquisitions in the U.S. market due to regulatory constraints.
Stephenson said that while he would be interested in entering fast-growing overseas markets where most people have yet to buy cellphones, such deals could be tough to pull off because of foreign ownership limits.
"Any time we see high growth markets that are under-penetrated in telecoms ... that's an area we look at," he said. "Obviously, foreign ownership restrictions in a lot of those markets preclude AT&T from going in."
(Reporting by Soyoung Kim in Detroit; Writing by Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Gary Hill)
((Reuters Messaging: sinead.carew.reuters.com@reuters.net; +1 646-223-6186)) Keywords: ATT/CEO
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