Cingular selling AT&T Wireless assets including customer accounts

Cingular Wireless announced they have entered into a definitive agreement on the sale of certain Cingular assets to ALLTEL. The company will sell to ALLTEL former AT&T Wireless properties, including licenses, network assets, and subscribers, in the following markets: Oklahoma City and Grant, Okla.; Sherman-Denison, and Jack, Texas; Owensboro and Fulton, Ky.; Litchfield, Conn. and Yalobusha, Miss. Cingular has also agreed to sell to ALLTEL 20MHz of spectrum and the network assets formerly held by AT&T Wireless in Wichita, Kan. In addition, Cingular is selling to ALLTEL wireless spectrum in several counties in Georgia and Texas.

Through this transaction, Cingular will receive US$170 million in cash from ALLTEL. In addition, the companies will swap some partnership interests, with Cingular receiving interests in such markets as Wichita, Kan., Kansas City, Mo., Milwaukee, and several in Texas. ALLTEL, in turn, will gain more ownership in markets it manages in Michigan, north Louisiana, and Toledo, Ohio.

Cingular says the transaction will allow it to meet a substantial portion of the divestiture obligations imposed by the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission as conditions of their approval of Cingular's merger with AT&T Wireless.

Closing of the transaction agreement is contingent upon regulatory approval and is expected to occur in the first quarter of 2005.