BLS Bellsouth Cp

BellSouth Announces Fourth Quarter Impact of Retiree Medical Benefits ATLANTA, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BellSouth Corporation (NYSE:BLS) announced today that the new terms of the retiree medical benefits plan included in its tentative agreement with the CWA reached on August 7th will result in a change in the calculation of its retiree medical obligation. The agreement with the CWA contains contractual limits on the company funded portion of retiree medical costs (referred to as "caps"). BellSouth has waived the premiums in excess of the caps during the current and past contract periods and, therefore has not collected contributions from non-management retirees. BellSouth has previously calculated its obligation for non-management retiree medical costs based on the terms of the written agreement with the CWA. The recent tentative agreement with the CWA includes an increase in the amount of the caps. With this increase, BellSouth will begin recording retiree medical costs as if there were no caps in future periods, effective in the fourth quarter of 2004. The change in the calculation will result in an increase to the retiree medical benefit obligation of approximately $3.3 billion which will be recognized over the average remaining service life of employees. The impact on fourth quarter 2004 earnings per share will be approximately 3 cents to 4 cents per share. About BellSouth Corporation BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and a parent company of Cingular Wireless, the nation's second largest wireless voice and data provider. Backed by award winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers(SM), residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial up and high speed DSL Internet access and Cingular(R) Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory advertising through BellSouth(R) RealPages.com(SM) and The Real Yellow Pages(R). In addition to historical information, this document may contain forward-looking statements regarding events and financial trends. Factors that could affect future results and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements include: (i) a change in economic conditions in domestic or international markets where we operate or have material investments which would affect demand for our services; (ii) the intensity of competitive activity and its resulting impact on pricing strategies and new product offerings; (iii) higher than anticipated cash requirements for investments, new business initiatives and acquisitions; (iv) unfavorable regulatory actions; (v) currency devaluations and continued economic weakness in certain international markets in which we operate or have material investments; and (vi) those factors contained in the Company's periodic reports filed with the SEC. The forward-looking information in this document is given as of this date only, and, BellSouth assumes no duty to update this information. More information about BellSouth can be found at http://www.bellsouth.com/ . DATASOURCE: BellSouth Corporation CONTACT: LeAnn Hansen, Media Relations of BellSouth Corporation, +1-404-249-2839, or BellSouth Investor Relations, +1-800-241-3419 Web site: http://www.bellsouth.com/ Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/095650.html

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