NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Dec. 15, 2003--Standard&Poor's said today that the ratings and outlook of diversified telecommunications company SBC Communications Inc. (A+/Stable/A-1) are not affected by the company's announcement that its board has authorized a share repurchase program of up to 350 million shares. If fully utilized, this would result in a cash requirement of close to $9 billion at current prices. However, it is Standard&Poor's expectation that SBC will only use a small portion of this potential repurchase authorization in 2004, which would not materially affect the company's credit profile. Given ongoing unbundled network element platform (UNE-P) competition and the potential for large-scale introduction of Internet protocol (IP)-based telephony by the cable companies in
