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BT posts huge loss, to layoff 15,000 more

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-14 22:52

LONDON -- British telecoms operator BT Group PLC said Thursday it expects to cut another 15,000 jobs in the next year after its Global Services division dragged the company to a fourth quarter loss of nearly 1 billion pounds.

In the three months ending March 31, BT recorded a net loss of 977 million pounds ($1.48 billion), compared to a profit of 426 million pounds a year earlier.

The Global Services unit, a provider of communication services for companies and government agencies, posted a pretax loss of 1.5 billion pounds, raising its total losses for the year to 2 billion pounds.

The unit is expected to bear the brunt of the job losses.

The British Telecom Tower is seen in central London May 11, 2009. [Agencies]

BT said it had cut 15,000 employees in the past year, and expected "further reductions of a similar level next year." The company had 108,000 employees at the end of December.

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Union spokeswoman Sian Jones said two-thirds of the job cuts were likely to be made in BT's operations in the U.K. The union had no more specific details on the cuts, but "Global Services will be clearly be hit harder than others."

Global Services has 33,000 employees worldwide, the union says.

"Fifteen thousand is a very challenging level of job losses, especially on the back of last year's reductions," said Andy Kerr, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union.

"There was a damaging mismanagement of Global Services by senior managers, which has been the main cause of these poor results. These managers have been removed and we're hopeful that this difficult time is now behind the company," Kerr said.

The division's losses swung BT Group to a full-year loss of 83 million pounds, compared to the previous-year profit of 1.7 billion pounds. Fourth quarter revenue rose less than 1 percent to 5.47 billion pounds, bringing full-year revenues up 3.4 percent to 21.4 billion pounds.

However, Jonathan Groocock, analyst at Investec Securities, said it was disappointed that BT did not provide a final figure on its pension funding deficit and that that may weigh against the company's shares.

BT will make pension top-up payments of 525 million pounds in each of the next three years, but the final figure depends on further discussions with the Pensions Regulator on the underlying assumptions.

"Any uncertainty over the pension deficit is very unwelcome. Today we were looking for closure on all these issues, and we have not got that," Groocock said.

BT Group was formed in 1984 from the privatization of a government monopoly, British Telecom.