AT&T gets $800 million boost from Sterling Commerce deal

With AT&T's (NYSE: T) $1.4 billion sale of Sterling Commerce to IBM (NYSE: IBM) now complete, the telco will record a one-time pretax gain of $800 million in Q3 2010. AT&T said that the after-tax value of the sale would be revealed when it reports Q3 2010 results.

In May, IBM crafted a $1.4 billion deal to purchase the Sterling Commerce business from AT&T, which sells business process software to the financial services, manufacturing and retail verticals. Sterling's software allows businesses to transfer various electronic documents, including purchase orders, company payroll and healthcare claims--activities that are not exactly core to AT&T's business.

SBC Communications, prior to purchasing its old parent AT&T in 2005, acquired Sterling Commerce for $3.9 billion in 2000--a time when dot-com companies were the talk of the Internet town.

For more:
- Reuters has this story

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