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Strategies & Market Trends : Three Amigos Stock Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ditchdigger who wrote (29277)	12/2/2002 10:08:50 AM
From: Ditchdigger	Respond to of 29382

out at 1.73, don't want to take a chance<g> (this hasn't hit yahoo yet 02.12.2002 14:04 Kilde: OBI STO - LOWERS 2002 GUIDANCE (1) London, England - December 02, 2002 - Stolt Offshore S.A. (Nasdaq: SOSA; Oslo Stock Exchange: STO) announced today that it expects full year 2002 results to be below previous guidance primarily due to provisions being taken for additional losses on certain major EPIC projects, the impairment of a joint venture investment and the final settlement of a legal dispute. STOLT OFFSHORE S.A. LOWERS 2002 GUIDANCE London, England - December 02, 2002 - Stolt Offshore S.A. (Nasdaq: SOSA; Oslo Stock Exchange: STO) announced today that it expects full year 2002 results to be below previous guidance primarily due to provisions being taken for additional losses on certain major EPIC projects, the impairment of a joint venture investment and the final settlement of a legal dispute. The Company now anticipates that earnings for the full year of 2002 will be a loss of $0.45-$0.50 per share compared to breakeven in previous guidance. Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen, interim Chief Executive Officer, said `At the time of the announcement of our third quarter earnings and the change of management, we cautioned that we were in the early stages of a detailed review of our ongoing projects (including variation orders) and backlog and that this might result in further revisions to our forecast. This review has now been completed. We have identified the need to take further provisions for certain projects, in particular on the Burullus Scarab & Saffron project in Egypt and the Shell Bonga and OGGS projects in Nigeria. We now believe that we have a fuller picture of the results of these and other EPIC projects. We have taken a $5 million charge for the partial write down of our investment in NKT Flexibles and we have made an additional $3.2 million provision for the final settlement of the dispute over the termination of the charter of the Toisa Puma. Accordingly we are reducing our guidance on year-end earnings. `In light of our revised forecast, Stolt Offshore could be in breach of certain financial covenants in its two major credit facilities. The Company has received approval from its main banks to change its covenants consistent with its revised forecasts. Finalisation of the consent to covenant revision is subject to the approval of the members of the bank syndicates and documentation which is expected to be complete by the end of December. `It is anticipated that at our fiscal year-end on November 30, 2002, gross debt will be in the range of $360 million to $400 million with the range being due to the timing of cash receipts on certain projects. Our current forecast Selskapside for Stolt Offshore