AT&T restructuring swallows $7bn

The price of change

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Broadband, 22nd October 2004 10:05 GMT

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Giant US telco AT&T revealed the cost of its restructuring - $7.1bn in the three months ended 30 September 2004. In the third quarter of last year the firm made income of $418m. The telco blamed an $11.4bn reduction in the value of its long-distance network for the loss which works out at $8.95 per share.

Excluding restructuring charges and writedowns the firm had net income of $593m. Revenue for the third quarter was $7.6bn, $5.6bn from AT&T Business and $2bn from its consumer business, a drop of 11.7 per cent from the third quarter of 2003 which it blamed on falling long-distance voice and data revenue. AT&T shares rose slightly on the news.

The costs are related to AT&T's move away from consumer telco services to business services with higher margins and the cost of cutting 7,400 jobs.

David Dorman, chairman and CEO at AT&T, said: "Our results for the third quarter demonstrate significant progress in transforming AT&T's cost structure and delivering a more effective business model for the future."

The company expects to beat expectations for the full year.

More details available here.