Agere warns of 2001 loss

(Telephony) On the day of its IPO, Agere Systems said in an SEC filing that the company may post a significant operating loss for fiscal 2001.

According to the SEC filing, Agere traces the troubles to the current economic slowdown.

“During our second fiscal quarter, some of our large customers rescheduled or canceled orders for both optoelectronic components and integrated circuits,” according to the filing. “In addition, an increasing number of our other customers recently have rescheduled or canceled orders, and the level of orders we have received recently is generally lower than we had previously anticipated.

“In addition, because most of our costs are fixed and reflect a cost structure that assumes a higher level of expected revenue, we currently expect a decrease in operating income, which includes amortization of goodwill and other acquired intangibles, compared to fiscal 2000, which would result in a significant operating loss for fiscal 2000.”

In fiscal 2000, Agere posted revenue of $4.7 billion and a net loss of $76 million.

The news may have contributed to Agere’s flat performance on Wednesday, its first day of trading, when it closed up just 2 cents to $6.02.

The company’s IPO was originally priced at $15 to $20 per share with 370,310,000 shares. Those numbers changed drastically over the past two months however, with the number of shares increasing to 600 million and share price decreasing to $6.