Cingular racks up $497 million loss in first post-merger quarterly report

The Associated Press



ATLANTA - In results skewed by its blockbuster acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Cingular Wireless LLC swung to a loss in the fourth quarter but said Monday it was heartened by its status as the nation's largest mobile phone provider.
The net addition of 1.8 million customers in the quarter, bringing its total customer base to 49.1 million, shows that the merger completed Oct. 26 appears to be gaining traction, telecom analyst Jeff Kagan said.
''There's no way to know what's going to happen a year or two from now, but so far so good,'' Kagan said.
For the three months ending Dec. 31, the Atlanta-based joint venture of BellSouth Corp. and SBC Communications Inc. said it lost $497 million, compared to a profit of $16 million for the same period a year ago.
Spokesman Clay Owen noted that the reported results for the fourth quarter include $210 million in merger-related costs and $415 million of amortization
of intangibles, which involves the accounting for depreciation of certain entities over a period of time. The loss reported by Cingular also excludes AT&T Wireless' results for the first 25 days of October, Owen said.
The $41 billion merger combined the nation's second- and third-largest mobile phone companies behind Verizon Wireless.
Owen said the fourth quarter was ''a very complicated quarter to report.'' But, he said, ''It was a very strong start to our life together as the new Cingular.''

I saw this coming. In the long run im sure the merger will be profitable for cingular. 415 millino is a large fall back though.

How long do you predict till they break even?

In figuring that, are we going to count the $41b that Cingular laid out for the company in the first place?