Lucent Reports Net Loss of $2.81 Billion in Fourth Quarter

Lucent on Wednesday reported a net loss of 84 cents per share for the July-September period, down from a net loss of $8.8 billion, or $2.59 per share, in the same quarter in 2001.

Excluding one-time items, the Murray Hill-based company posted a pro forma net loss of $2.13 billion, or 64 cents per share. That beat by a penny a share the sharply reduced consensus forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

The analysts had slashed their estimates twice _ from a 16-cent per share loss and then a loss of 45 cents a share _ after Lucent on Sept. 13 and again on Oct. 11 issued warnings that it would miss its earnings targets.

The special items included $661 million for restructuring and write-down of devalued assets and $141 million in gains from the sale of its optical fiber businesses.

A year ago, the pro forma net loss was $934 million, or 28 cents per share, which excluded a charge of $8 billion for severance and benefits for laid-off workers and others who took voluntary retirement, writeoffs of discontinued and obsolete inventory and writeoffs of plants, equipment and property no longer needed.

Fourth-quarter revenues plunged 56 percent, to $2.28 billion from $5.16 billion a year earlier.

In an industry so anemic that companies are comparing results with the prior quarter, Lucent showed improvement over its fiscal third quarter, when it posted a pro forma net loss of $6.4 billion, or $1.88 per share. But revenues were still down 22.8 percent sequentially from the third quarter, when they totaled $2.95 billion.

For the full year, Lucent reported a net loss of $11.8 billion, or $3.51 per share, on revenues of $12.3 billion. A year earlier, Lucent reported a net loss of $16.2 billion, or $4.18 per share, on revenues of $21.3 billion.

Excluding one-time charges, the fiscal 2002 net loss was $9.9 billion, or $2.95 per share. The comparable pro forma figures for fiscal 2001 were a net loss of $5.1 billion, or $1.50 per share.

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