Cease Operations at Poly-Disc Systems, Take Write-Off : Micronetics Sees $30-Million Loss

National Micronetics said Friday that write-offs from a discontinued and money-losing subsidiary will push fiscal 1985 losses to as much as $30 million, the company’s first annual loss in five years.

National Micronetics will cease operations at Poly-Disc Systems, a Torrance subsidiary that has lost money since its acquisition in September, 1983. The plant, which makes coated disks for computer disk drives, has about 60 employees.

The suspension will prompt a write-off of at least $15 million, which will mean a loss of between $25 million and $30 million for the year ended June 28, according to Chairman Ned W. Buoymaster.

National Micronetics paid $7.7 million for Poly-Disc, and, anticipating a sharp rise in sales, subsequently pumped $6 million into its production facilities.

“Poly-Disc has sustained operating losses since we acquired it,” Buoymaster said. “We’ve concluded that (Poly-Disc’s technology) is just not going to be profitable.”

Buoymaster said that closing the plant will not affect National Micronetics’ three-year effort to develop a “sputtered disk technology” that uses a vacuum deposition process to coat substrates with a thin film of magnetic material.

About 10 technical and managerial people and some of Poly-Disc’s physical plant will be shifted to the company’s San Diego operation, Buoymaster said. The company employs about 1,000 people in its plants in San Diego and Kingston, N.Y.

National Micronetics’ core business is the manufacturing of magnetic recording heads for computer disk drives. Earlier this week, it reported a $1.5-million loss for the third quarter ended March 30, compared to a $5.8-million loss for the same quarter a year earlier. Sales for the quarter fell 27% to $13.2 million.