Xerox Loses $77 Million for Quarter, Cites Streamlining

Xerox Corp. today said it lost $77 million in the fourth quarter, the result of a streamlining program in which it will cut 2,000 jobs, trim its typewriter business and stop selling medical image-making equipment.

Xerox, the copier giant based in Stamford, Conn., said that without the pretax charge of $275 million, its profit in the quarter would have risen 8%.

The company lost money last year in electronic typewriters; document work stations; and medical image-making, which uses an unusual copying process called xeroradiography, according to David Kearns, Xerox’s chairman and chief executive.

“We are not moving as rapidly toward our objectives as we feel we must,” Kearns said in a news conference, explaining the streamlining program.

The losses were partially offset by a good reception for its new 50 Series of copiers and healthy profits in the financial services business, which accounts for 30% of Xerox revenue, the company said.

Xerox said its loss in the fourth quarter contrasted with a profit of $155 million, or $1.43 a share, a year earlier. Without the charge, it said, profit would have been $167 million. Revenue rose 6% to $4.4 billion from $4.15 billion a year earlier.

For all of 1988, Xerox said its earnings fell 33% to $388 million, or $3.50 a share, from $578 million, or $5.35 a share, a year earlier. Without the fourth-quarter charge, profit would have risen 9% to $632 million. Revenue rose 9% to $16.4 billion from $15.1 billion.