Nortel posts $80M loss

After delaying the filing of its annual financial reports for 2006, Nortel Networks Ltd. announced that despite a 10-percent increase in revenues from the same period a year ago, it suffered a net loss of $80 million in its fourth-quarter results. Executives were pleased with $3.2 billion in revenues for the quarter, but warned that such performance isn’t expected to be repeated throughout 2007.
“I am particularly pleased with the progress made in the fourth quarter as we grew revenues by 10 percent, grew our backlog, and improved operating margin and operating cash flow performance. In fact, the quarter operating margin was the highest in eight quarters and the operating cash flow performance for 2006 was the best since 1998,” Nortel President and CEO Mike Zafirovski.
The filing comes as the company continues to reel from a month of disappointing news. Over the previous month, it has lost its CFO, paid out $2.4 billion in cash and stock to settle stockholder lawsuits stemming from three years of accounting errors, and announced it will be cutting 9 percent of its workforce. Last week, when Nortel said it would be delaying the filing of its annual financial report for 2006, the network-equipment maker announced it will also be restating its financial results for 2004, 2005 and the first nine months of 2006 and will make adjustments to multiple periods prior to 2004.
The Toronto-based company has yet to accurately report financial reports for any year in the current decade. Stocks were down more than 1 percent in early trading after the news.