Southern Company named among best managed utilities by Forbes magazine

ATLANTA – Southern Company has been named among the top 10 best managed utilities by Forbes magazine. It’s the fourth year the company has made the Forbes’ list.

The magazine’s list of Best Managed Companies in America was determined by a search of 1,000 publicly traded companies that have at least $1 billion in sales, positive book value and a price of at least $5.

Forbes ranked candidate companies on financial performance against their industry peers in one of 26 industry groups during the past five years and most recent 12 months. Ranking items include sales and earnings growth, stock market returns and debt to total capital. Forbes also ranked companies on their consensus forecasts for long-term earnings growth. Once rankings were determined for all these individual metrics, Forbes tabulated a composite rank and score for each company.

Next, Forbes determined the financial integrity of each company by evaluating hundreds of financial items on each corporation. Then, companies were scored in three key topics: accounting and governance, financial condition and earnings quality.

Once Forbes narrowed down its list to exactly 400 companies, Forbes editors and writers evaluated the leading companies in each industry on factors such as innovation, efficiency and market leadership. Through additional objective and subjective analysis, they selected the best-managed companies in each of 26 industries, including utilities.

About Southern Company Southern Company’s main businesses are regulated utilities and competitive generation.

Regulated Utilities Strong base of transmission, distribution and regulated generation. Annual long-term demand growth in service territory of 2 percent and long-term customer growth of about 1.5 percent.

Competitive Generation Approximately 5,400 megawatts of generating capacity in commercial operation dedicated to serving the competitive wholesale market in the “Super Southeast.”

Strong Financial Performance Earnings per Share Growth 5 percent long term growth target Return on Equity Top quartile of electric utilities Dividend Growth Consistent with our long-term earnings per share objectives Capital Structure Maintain common equity ratio of approximately 40 percent EPS Guidance Range of $2.04 to $2.09 in 2005

With more than 4 million customers and more than 40,000 megawatts of generating capacity, Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is the premier super-regional energy company in the Southeast and a leading U.S. producer of electricity. Southern Company owns electric utilities in four states and a growing competitive generation company, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications. Southern Company brands are known for excellent customer service, high reliability and retail electric prices that are 15 percent below the national average. Southern Company has been ranked the nation`s top energy utility in the American Customer Satisfaction Index six years in a row. Southern Company has more than 500,000 shareholders, making its common stock one of the most widely held in the United States. Visit the Southern Company Web site at www.southerncompany.com.