HispanicBusiness

The head of AT&T on Thursday suggested that the company might sell its directory business, which employs more than 500 people in St. Louis.

The company reported a $6.68 billion loss for the December quarter, fueled largely by a $4 billion cancellation charge paid after the failure of its planned purchase of T-Mobile.

But the loss also included a noncash charge of about $2.9 billion to reflect the falling value of its directory business, which includes the Yellow Pages phone book and its Internet incarnation.

In a morning conference call with analysts, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson labeled the directory business as underperforming.

"That's one area that we're going to obviously take a very hard look at, and while I don't want to give any indication on M&A activity, it's one of these areas that we're going to have to decide, do we keep it, do we restructure it, as we move forward," he said. M&A means mergers and acquisitions, the buying and selling of companies.

AT&T declined to give any further details on the directory business presence in St. Louis, or the company's intentions. It also declined to say how many people the business employed locally.

However, that business employs 575 union members in St. Louis, plus management personnel, said Jim Kolve, executive vice president of Communications Workers of America Local 6300. The local workers handle sales, accounting, customer service and part of production, working on both the print director and the Internet.