The merger proposition gained approval from the European Commission, the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Communications Commission and looked set to proceed. However, after BT reduced its offer for MCI allowing it to talk to other suitors, on 1 October 1997 Worldcom made a rival bid for MCI which was followed by a counter bid from GTE. MCI accepted the Worldcom bid and BT pulled out of its deal with a severance fee of $465 million. BT made even more money when it sold its stake in MCI to Worldcom in 1998 for £4.15bn on which it made an exceptional pre-tax profit of £1.13bn. As part of the deal, BT bought from MCI its 24.9 per cent interest in Concert Communications, making Concert a wholly owned part of BT. Concert with AT&T As BT now owned Concert, and still wanted access to the North American market, it needed a new partner. An AT&T/BT option had been mooted in the past, but stopped on regulatory grounds due to their individual virtual monopolies in their home markets. By 1996, this had receded to the point where a deal was possible. However, the former monopolies clashed in management and culture - and the alliance never really worked from the start. Also, during the proposed MCI merger position, BT/MCI had placed a series of nominated customers inside Concert to overcome regulatory issues, leaving Concert with a sales force. On merger with AT&T, it was reversion to delivery of a series of Global products, and two competing owners - which robbed Concert of revenues and left its management disillusioned. At its height, the Concert managed network directly reached more than 800 cities in 52 countries, and interlinked to about 240 other networks to extend access to 1,300 cities in 130 countries. Although Concert continued signing customers, its rate of revenue growth slowed, so that in 1999 David Dorman was made CEO with a brief to revive it. In late 2000 the BT and AT&T boards fell-out - partly due to each partner's excess debt and the resultant board room clear-out(s); partly due to Concerts $800M annual losses. AT&T recognised that Concert was a threat to its ambitions if left intact, and so negotiated a deal where Concert was split in two in 2001: North America and Eastern Asia went to AT&T, the rest of the world and $400M to BT. BT's remaining