AT&T says braced for divestitures on T-Mobile deal

BOSTON (Reuters) - The chief executive of AT&T (T.N) expects to have to sell some assets to gain U.S. regulatory approval for its proposed $39 billion acquisition of Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) unit T-Mobile USA.

"I can't remember a wireless deal of any size that we've done over the past 5 or 6 years where the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission didn't look at certain markets and believe there was too much concentration, and require some kind of divestitures," AT&T's Randall Stephenson said on Wednesday.

"I anticipate we'll have some of that here but I have no idea right now what it will look like," Stephenson told reporters after a speech to Boston College's Chief Executives' Club of Boston.

Stephenson said the huge merger is still on track to close in about a year.

Asked about potential staff cuts once AT&T absorbs T-Mobile, Stephenson said there would be a number of "overlap" functions between the two companies, such as finance and marketing.

"We have very elegant ways of dealing with this," he said.

(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Gary Hill)

(Corrects name of agency in second paragraph to Federal Communications Commission instead of Securities and Exchange Commission)