Lucent 4th-Qtr Sales to Fall, Plans More Job Cuts (Update2)
By Alex Armitage and Justin Baer
Murray Hill, New Jersey, Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Lucent Technologies Inc., the biggest U.S. maker of telephone equipment, forecast its sixth-straight decline in quarterly sales and will pare more jobs because customer spending hasn't rebounded.
Sales in the fourth quarter ending Sept. 30 will drop as much as 25 percent from the third-quarter's $2.95 billion, Lucent said in a statement. Lucent's per-share loss before certain expenses will be almost three times as wide as analysts predicted because of the sales decline and costs related to a customer default.
Chief Executive Patricia Russo is trying to compensate for tumbling demand by cutting deeper into Lucent's workforce, which had been slated to fall to 45,000 by year's end from 123,000 about two years ago. Spokeswoman Mary Lou Ambrus declined to elaborate on Russo's plan, saying details would be released Oct. 23.
Lucent, which has posted nine straight quarters of net losses, has ``more than significant liquidity to fund our operations and business plans,'' Ambrus said.
Shares of the Murray Hill, New Jersey-based company fell as much as 13 percent. Rivals such as Alcatel SA and Nortel Networks Corp. also declined.
Missing Estimates
Ambrus wouldn't elaborate on the customer-financing default and said Russo, Chairman Henry Schacht and Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio weren't available to comment.
Lucent forecast a fourth-quarter loss of 45 cents, excluding expenses related to restructuring, amortization of goodwill and a gain from the sale of its optical-fiber business. On that basis, Lucent had been expected to post a loss of 16 cents, the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson First Call.
Lucent shares slid 20 cents to $1.45 at 9:36 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They had dropped 66 percent in the past year and traded as high as $64.69 in December 1999.
The company's 7.25 percent coupon notes maturing in 2006 fell 4 cents to 64.5 cents on the dollar as of 9:10 a.m., according to Trace, the bond price reporting system of the National Association of Securities Dealers. That pushed up the yield on the debt to 21.3 percent from 19.2 percent.
Shares of Alcatel, Europe's biggest maker of phone gear, dropped as much as 11 percent to 3.65 euros in Paris trading. Nortel Networks fell 7 cents, or 6.6 percent, to 99 cents on the New York Stock Exchange. |
