Polaroid Has 1st-Quarter Loss of $13.8 Million

Polaroid, citing costs of its severance plan to cut its payroll, announced a first-quarter loss of $13.8 million on worldwide sales of $261.7 million.

In the 1984 first quarter, the company earned $6.4 million on sales of $268.3 million.

Without a pretax $30-million reserve to cover staff reductions, first-quarter earnings would have been $4.2 million, Polaroid said.

“In reducing our payroll costs in this way, we have the opportunity to improve the long-term profitability of the corporation and its position in today’s extremely competitive world,” Polaroid Chairman William J. McCune Jr. said.

McCune said savings from the staff reduction would start in the second half of 1985.

Because of declining demand for some of Polaroid’s mainstay products, such as instant cameras and film, the company announced in early April a white-collar staff reduction of 10%, or 400 people.

Last year, Polaroid’s earnings fell 48% to $25.7 million from $49.7 million in 1983.

Revenue in the United States in the first quarter increased 6% from the year-ago quarter, while overseas sales were 11% lower as the value of the U.S. dollar soared, the company said.