JDS Uniphase posts $4.3 billion loss

JDS Uniphase Thursday posted a $4.3 billion third-quarter loss, announced 2000 new layoffs and gave a glum outlook of the months to come.

Hammered by carriers’ cuts in spending, JDSU’s sales of optical equipment dropped 72% from $920.1 million in last year’s third quarter to just $261.8 million. In an effort to further cut cost, JDSU will lay off another 2000 employees, bringing its rolls to about 10,000. JDSU said the measures would cut an additional $165 million from its operations. Coupled with layoffs and cost-cutting measures last year, the vendor has knocked more than a $1 billion off of its operating budget.

“Today, we are announcing further actions under our Global Realignment Program that we believe are necessary to match our expense structure to the current and anticipated telecommunications industry environment,” CEO Jozef Straus said in a statement.

The restructuring, however, will cost the vendor $1.1 billion, $676 million of which was chalked up through the end of the third quarter. JDSU recorded a charge of $25 million and wrote down $3.9 billion in goodwill and long-lived assets, but the bad news is expected to continue into its fourth fiscal quarter ending June 30.

Company officials lowered forecasts due to worsening industry conditions, predicting a pro forma loss of 3 cents to 4 cents a share, which excludes the massive restructuring charges. First Call consensus analysts had JDSU at a loss of 2 cents a share, excluding goodwill and restructuring charges.

--Kevin Fitchard, Staff Writer