IN BRIEF

NEW YORK

CenturyTel will buy Qwest in $10.6 billion stock-swap deal

CenturyTel Inc., the country's fifth-largest local-phone company, said Thursday that it will buy Qwest Communications International Inc., the third-largest, in a stock swap worth $10.6 billion to gain the benefits of scale in a shrinking business.

CenturyTel is the dominant phone provider in Southern Nevada.

The combined company would have about 17 million phone lines serving customers in 37 states, but would still be dwarfed by AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.

CenturyTel is offering stock worth about $6.02 per share for each Qwest share, a premium of about 15 percent to Qwest's Wednesday closing price of $5.24.

Qwest stockholders would receive 0.1664 CenturyTel shares for each share they own and hold 49.5 percent of the new company, while CenturyTel stockholders would own 50.5 percent of the business.

DALLAS

Southwest Airlines ekes out profit during first quarter

By the slimmest of margins, Southwest Airlines Co. made a profit in the first quarter while other big carriers were losing money.

Southwest, the busiest carrier at McCarran International Airport, said Thursday it earned $11 million, or a penny per share.

Revenue rose 11.6 percent.

The airline says it's seeing an uptick in business travel but is struggling with jet fuel costs, which jumped by about one-third.

Oil prices hovered around $83 a barrel on Thursday after a long climb that began in December 2008.

ATLANTA

Bank of Nevada parent reverses first-quarter loss

The holding company for Bank of Nevada said Thursday that it turned the corner and posted a $384,000 first-quarter profit, contrasting an $86.4 million loss in the same period a year earlier.

The bottom line for Western Alliance Bancorporation includes a gain of $8.4 milion from securities sales.

The net loss at Las Vegas-based Bank of Nevada and Reno-based First Independent Bank totaled $2.7 million for the first quarter, down from $64.1 million a year earlier. The year-ago figure included a $45 million impairment in goodwill, the premium over book value paid for bank acquisitions.

McLEAN, Va.

Rates on 30-year mortgages unchanged from week earlier

Rates on 30-year mortgages didn't budge from last week and remained above 5 percent, Freddie Mac said Thursday.

The average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages was 5.07 this week, the same as the previous week. A year ago, 30-year fixed rate mortgages averaged 4.80 percent, Freddie Mac said.

This week, the average rate on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.39 percent, down from 4.4 percent last week.