Telephone Holding Firms Record Mixed Results

Three Baby Bell phone companies reported mixed results.

Fourth-quarter earnings rose 14% at Pacific Telesis Group and 5% at NYNEX Corp., but fell 4% at Southwestern Bell Corp. because of extraordinary charges.

All three holding companies said their results were helped by continued growth in demand for phone service in their regions and cost-cutting efforts.

Pacific Telesis, with headquarters in San Francisco, said it earned $237.4 million in the final quarter of 1986 on revenue of $2.19 billion. A year earlier, the company posted net income of $208.2 million on revenue of $2.17 billion.

Earnings for all of 1986 totaled $1.08 billion on revenue of $8.98 billion, compared to earnings of $929 million on revenue of $8.5 billion in 1985.

St. Louis-based Southwestern Bell reported fourth-quarter earnings of $221.6 million, down from $230 million in 1985’s last quarter. Revenue fell to $2.01 billion from $2.03 billion.

For the year, the company had net income of $1.02 billion on revenue of $7.9 billion. That compared to 1985 net income of $996 million on revenue of $7.92 billion.

The 1985 results included non-recurring net income of about $57 million from Yellow Pages directories, the company said Tuesday. Excluding those earnings, net income for 1986 increased 8.9% over 1985’s adjusted earnings of $939 million.

“The corporation was able to produce solid financial growth in 1986 while the economic index for the geographic center of our business, the Southwest, declined almost 3%,” said Zane E. Barnes, chairman and chief executive.

NYNEX, with headquarters in New York, said it earned $293.7 million on revenue of $2.96 billion, up from net income of $279.8 million on revenue of $2.61 billion a year earlier.

For all of 1986, NYNEX said it made a profit of $1.22 billion on revenue of $11.3 billion, up from profit of $1.10 billion on revenue of $10.3 billion in 1986.