IBM Had $2.8 Billion Loss - Its First - in '91;Red Ink Reflects Recession and Restructuring
International Business Machines Corp., struggling to reinvent itself amid changing times in the computer industry, yesterday reported a $2.8 billion loss for 1991 - its first annual loss ever.</br></br>Buffeted by the global economic slowdown, the company also reported its first year-over-year decline in corporate revenue since 1946, when IBM's principal products were typewriters and adding machines.</br></br>Although IBM's core businesses turned a profit in 1991, it was more than erased by two one-time write-offs totaling $5.7 billion, one covering severance pay for 29,000 employees who left the company under voluntary retirement or other inducements, the other covering future health care benefits of retirees. Both had been previously announced but the cost of the work force reductions was somewhat higher than anticipated.</br></br>1991 "was a disappointing year," IBM Chairman John F. Akers said in a prepared statement from the company's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y. "We were adversely affected by protracted worldwide economic weakness, competitive pressures and transitions within our product lines."</br></br>The poor results had been widely expected on Wall Street, and were slightly better than some analysts expected. As a result, IBM stock was cushioned from the effects of the news: It fell $3 after the announcement, then rebounded to close up 87 1/2 cents, at $96.37 1/2, on the New York Stock Exchange.