German biggest engineering conglomerate Siemens has reported a fourth quarter net loss of 1.09bn euros ($965.7m), due to the slump in the telecoms sector and 532m euros in special charges.

The results for the quarter are the worst since chief executive Heinrich von Pierer took over the helm in 1992 and refocused the company on telecom networks and mobile phones.

Net profit for 2000-2001 slumped by 75% to 2.08bn euros ($1.76bn) after a record 8.86bn euros in the previous year, but sales in the period rose by 12% to 87bn euros.

The company, which had announced job cuts totalling 17,000 people to reduce costs after losses in its telecoms operations, gave a cautious outlook and said restructuring was on track.

"Before commenting more specifically on the outlook, however, the company will continue to monitor its business performance, particularly the trend in sales and order intake to better assess the effects of September 11," it said.

No more plants

Rivals Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson all announced major losses in October and have also made deep job cuts.

Mr von Peirer said the group did not plan on making any additional job cuts on top of those already announced this year.

Last week Mr von Pierer told employees in a memo to further reduce costs by cutting back on office plants and promotional t-shirts.

Loss before interest, tax and amortisation (Ebitda) was 130m euros, including restructuring charges and asset write-offs of 959m euros, within analysts expectations.

The result excluded results from Siemens' loss-making chip unit Infineon Technologies, which it is trying to divest.

"My first reaction is that the headline looks bad, but the underlying numbers look better than we expected," said Mark Davies-Jones, at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney in London.

Siemens shares rose over 6% despite the poor results, after having fallen 40% this year, knocking 23bn euros of its market value.

Tech trouble

A good performance by the company's 'old economy' divisions - automation, drives, and power - did not compensated for the poor performance of Information & Communications Networks (ICN).

Siemens closed half of ICN's factories and cut 10,000 jobs this year, including chairman Roland Koch, after heavy losses.

About 4,600 workers have already been cut from the Information and Communication Mobile (ICM) division, which makes both mobile handsets and mobile infrastructure, which reported its FIRST EVER fall in sales.

Siemens also cut about 2,000 jobs from VDO, the auto division which it bought from Mannesmann last year, which also booked a loss.