HP posts $8.9-bn loss, plans more job cuts

Hewlett-Packard Co swung to an $8.9 billion quarterly loss as personal computer sales shrank again and it swallowed a huge write-down linked to its $13.9 billion purchase of Electronic Data Systems Corp.

The No.1 personal computer maker, which employs more than 300,000 people globally, is undergoing a multi-year restructuring aimed at focusing the sprawling corporation on enterprise services, in the mold of IBM. The plan calls for reducing its employee base by 8 per cent.

HP will have gone through about half of its targeted job reductions by the end of the fiscal year, HP's Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak said in an interview. It cut 4,000 jobs in fiscal's third quarter and will likely have shorn 11,500 jobs by end of fiscal 2012, she said.

"HP is definitely showing progress in terms of turning around the company," said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu. "One of the clear signs is a better predictability of earnings."

The company was plagued by poor forecasting during former Chief Executive Leo Apotheker's brief tenure.
CEO Meg Whitman has urged investors to be patient as she works to jumpstart revenue and cut costs.

"We are still in the early stage of the turnaround. There will be challenges ahead that could create some variability in performance," said Whitman, who replaced the unpopular Apotheker at the helm in September. "But I'm confident in our ability to work through them and get to where we want to be."

The world's largest PC maker posted a 5 percent slide in net revenue in its fiscal third quarter to $29.7 billion, slightly below the average Wall Street estimate of $30.1 billion as compiled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

It took a charge of $10.8 billion, mostly related to the writedown of its EDS services business, which it had announced earlier this month.

HP, which like smaller rival Dell Inc is struggling to offset faltering PC sales with services revenue, posted a net loss of $4.49 a share in its fiscal third quarter that ended July 31, versus a profit $1.9 billion, or 93 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding items such as the writedown, it earned $1 a share, outstripping Wall Street's target of 98 cents. The stock was holding steady at $19.20 in after hours, unchanged from its close in regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

PERSONAL COMPUTERS HIT HARD

The massive quarterly loss was expected as company said earlier this month that it would take a noncash charge of $8 billion, primarily writing down the value of its 2008 acquisition of EDS for $13.9 billion.

HP has lost close to a quarter of its market value in 2012. Its shares are down about 15 percent from when Whitman was appointed to the helm in September of last year.

Revenue from all of HP's main business units fell, with the personal computer division unsurprisingly recording the steepest drop of 10 percent, to $8.6 billion.

Services revenue dipped just 3 percent to $8.8 billion, edging past Personal Systems Group -- which includes PCs -- to become the company's largest sales generator in the quarter that ended July 31.

HP's business continued to be hit by a slowing economy in most of its biggest regions, including Western Europe and China.

The "pretty soft underlying macro economic environment" is continuing into the current quarter, Lesjak said but added that there were some "bright spots" such as Eastern Europe and Japan.

In personal computers, HP is facing both a weak consumer market and competitive pricing, Lesjak added.

HP said it expected to earn $4.05 to $4.07 per share for fiscal year 2012, in line with Wall Street expectations.


Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012