September 21 in business history: a wireless venture split 55–45, the last two investment banks taking a bank charter, and Cisco's $28 billion cheque
Three September 21 decisions — a wireless joint venture split 55–45 in 1999, the last two investment banks taking a bank charter in 2008, and Cisco's $28 billion purchase of Splunk in 2023 — each bought on the outside a capability the company had not built, and each carried a price that arrived years later.
Three September 21 decisions, spread across 24 years, each one a company buying on the outside a capability it had decided not to build. In 1999 Bell Atlantic took a partner to get a national wireless network. In 2008 the last two independent investment banks took a bank charter to get deposits. In 2023 Cisco wrote the biggest cheque in its history to get a software business it had been assembling a piece at a time. Every announcement carried a price. What each one finally cost arrived years later.
The wireless company that was 55 percent Bell Atlantic
On September 21, 1999, Bell Atlantic and Vodafone AirTouch said they had agreed the terms of a coast-to-coast American wireless joint venture. Bell Atlantic would hold 55 percent and Vodafone 45 percent, and the new company was valued at more than $70 billion 1. Combining Bell Atlantic's East Coast operations with Vodafone's West Coast business produced 20 million wireless customers, making it the largest wireless business in the country, and the new company would start with up to $10 billion of debt 1. Ivan Seidenberg, Bell Atlantic's chairman and chief executive, called it "a logical fit, naturally uniting our US properties and strong management teams, and enhancing the benefits of Bell Atlantic's merger with GTE" 1.
The same announcement also priced the exit. Vodafone could sell shares through an initial public offering three years after the close, and it held an option to put up to $20 billion of its interest back to Bell Atlantic or to the wireless company between three and seven years after the close 1. A partner's half had a written price on the day the partnership was announced, and the document set it at $20 billion.
The venture cleared regulatory approval in six months. The Verizon brand launched on April 3, 2000, and the venture began operating as Verizon Wireless the next day; GTE's wireless operations joined when the Bell Atlantic–GTE merger closed nearly three months later, at which point Verizon held 55 percent of the business and its management control 2. With the purchase of Alltel in 2009, Verizon Wireless became the largest wireless carrier in the United States by customer numbers 2.
Fifteen years after the announcement, the other half was bought out. Vodafone agreed in September 2013 to sell its 45 percent interest in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion, and the transaction completed on February 21, 2014 3. Vodafone returned around $85 billion to its shareholders, which its chief executive Vittorio Colao described as "the largest single return to shareholders in history" 3. The option written into the 1999 agreement had capped $20 billion of Vodafone's stake; the market put the whole 45 percent at $130 billion.
Decision mirror: On July 30, 2026, Vodafone completed the buyout of CK Hutchison's 49 percent stake in VodafoneThree for £4.3 billion, taking Britain's largest mobile operator to full ownership 4. Chief executive Margherita Della Valle said full ownership and control would let the company "move faster in the next phase of building one of Europe's leading networks" 4. The same company priced a partner's half again, 27 years later, at £4.3 billion.
The last two investment banks take a bank charter
The Federal Reserve Board released its decision at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, September 21, 2008. The Board approved, pending a statutory five-day antitrust waiting period, the applications of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies 5. The approval carried a credit line with it: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was authorised to lend to the two firms' American broker-dealer subsidiaries against any collateral eligible at the Fed's primary credit facility or at the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, and to their London broker-dealer subsidiaries on the same terms 5. Those arrangements were extended to the broker-dealer subsidiary of Merrill Lynch as well 5.
Six days earlier Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy. The two firms that built their franchises on trading with their own capital were now to be supervised as banks, and the independent investment bank as a structure disappeared inside the month.
What the two firms bought was funding. Goldman Sachs' own account of the decision says it addressed market perceptions that placed a premium on Federal Reserve oversight and on the ability to fund the firm with FDIC-insured bank deposits 6. Goldman already ran two deposit-taking institutions holding more than $20 billion of customer deposits; merging its existing businesses into Goldman Sachs Bank USA made it one of the ten largest banks in the United States, with more than $150 billion of assets by the end of 2008 6. Chairman and chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said, "We believe that Goldman Sachs, under Federal Reserve supervision, will be regarded as an even more secure institution with an exceptionally clean balance sheet and a greater diversity of funding sources" 6.
The bill came with the charter. Bank holding company status brought direct Federal Reserve regulation and new capital and leverage tests 6. The Federal Reserve's approval had itself been issued at a Sunday night meeting, pending the statutory five-day antitrust waiting period 6.
Morgan Stanley then spent a decade buying the balance sheet the charter allowed. Its all-stock acquisition of the online broker E*TRADE, announced on February 20, 2020 at about $13 billion, added roughly $56 billion of low-cost deposits, which the firm described as "significant funding benefits" 7. In the second quarter of 2026 the firm reported record net revenues of $21.3 billion, a record $148.1 billion of net new assets in wealth management, $10 trillion of client assets across wealth and investment management, and a return on tangible common equity of 26.6 percent 8.
Decision mirror: On July 10, 2026, Circle Internet Group received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank, First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate as Circle National Trust 9. Circle applied on June 30, 2025 and had conditional approval in December; the charter puts custody for its USDC stablecoin under federal oversight, with management of the reserves planned as a future capability 9. Co-founder and chief executive Jeremy Allaire called federal oversight of the trust bank "a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system" 9. Eighteen years after two investment banks took a charter to reach the deposit system, a stablecoin issuer is making the same trade.
Cisco's $28 billion cheque
Cisco's agreement to acquire Splunk was signed on September 20, 2023, and the two companies announced it the next morning. Cisco would pay $157.00 a share in cash, an equity value of about $28 billion, the largest acquisition in the company's history 1011. The merger agreement carried two break fees: $1.478 billion payable by Cisco in specified circumstances, including a termination following an antitrust injunction, and $1 billion payable by Splunk if it accepted a rival proposal 10. Hellman & Friedman, which owned 7.6 percent of Splunk, agreed to vote its 12.8 million shares in favour of the deal 10.
The purchase closed on March 18, 2024, after regulatory clearance, and Cisco described itself as "one of the largest software companies globally" 12.
Two full fiscal years later, the mix had a clear winner. For the year ended July 25, 2026, Cisco reported revenue of $63.3 billion, up 12 percent, and a record fourth quarter of $17.3 billion, up 18 percent 13. Networking product revenue reached $34.7 billion, up 22 percent, while security product revenue reached $8.2 billion, up 2 percent, and observability revenue reached $1.1 billion, up 4 percent 13. Splunk's revenue is reported inside those last two lines 13. The same year, Cisco booked $9.3 billion of AI infrastructure orders, including $4 billion in the fourth quarter, and carried $59.5 billion of goodwill on its balance sheet 13. The record year came from networking and AI orders, and it guided to $72.2 billion to $73.4 billion of revenue for fiscal 2027 13.
Decision mirror: The market price of the same kind of capability has risen since. Google signed its agreement to buy the cloud security company Wiz for $32 billion in cash on March 18, 2025, and completed the purchase on March 11, 2026; Alphabet's own accounts put the final price at $29.5 billion after purchase-price adjustments 1415. Palo Alto Networks completed its acquisition of CyberArk on February 11, 2026, paying $45.00 in cash and 2.2005 of its own shares for each CyberArk share 16. Cisco paid about $28 billion for Splunk in 2023; three years later the same class of asset cleared $32 billion.
The diligence test
Four questions to run against the version of this sitting on your own desk.
- What does the agreement already say the other half will cost? Vodafone's option to put up to $20 billion of its stake back to Bell Atlantic was written into the 1999 announcement. The 45 percent sold for $130 billion in 2014.
- What is the access worth, and what does the supervision cost? Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley traded the independent investment bank for deposits and the discount window in a Sunday-night approval. Morgan Stanley's wealth arm reported $10 trillion of client assets in the second quarter of 2026.
- Which line did the cheque actually move? Cisco's $28 billion went out in cash in 2023. In the year ended July 25, 2026, networking revenue grew 22 percent and security revenue grew 2 percent.
- What would the same capability cost you today? Cisco paid about $28 billion for Splunk in 2023, and Google's agreement for Wiz, signed in 2025, was $32 billion in cash.
References
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- 10Cisco Systems: Form 8-K
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- 12Cisco: Cisco Completes Acquisition of Splunk
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- 13Cisco: Cisco Reports Fourth Quarter Earnings
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