AT&T Corp. said restructuring took a toll on the bottom line in the fourth quarter as the telecommunications giant reported a net loss of $2.68 billion, or $1.67 a share.
Those figures reflect a charge for the quarter of $6.25 billion, which covers the shedding of 40,000 workers and the splitting of AT&T into three companies, now under way. A year earlier, the company earned $1.34 billion, or 85 cents a share.
Without the extraordinary charge, fourth-quarter earnings would have been $1.5 billion, or 94 cents a share. Revenues rose nearly 5 percent, to $22.13 billion from $21.11 billion a year earlier.
Restructuring costs also depressed earnings for the year, which totaled $139 million, or 9 cents a share, down 97 percent from 1994’s $4.71 billion, or $3.01 a share. Without the one-time charges, AT&T would have earned $5.49 billion, or $3.45 a share, in 1995.
Revenues climbed about 6 percent, to $79.6 billion from $75.1 billion in 1994.
