CompuServe Messages

Executive News Svc.($) APf 03/25 1912 Earns-Commodore Copyright, 1994. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. NEW YORK (AP) — Commodore International Limited, a pioneer in home computers, painted a grim picture of its future Friday as it reported another quarterly loss. Commodore warned that, without additional financial help, it could be thrown into a reorganization or liquidation proceedings. It is trying to negotiate a restructuring with creditors. Commodore made the announcement late in the day after the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Its stock was down 12 1/2 cents to $3 per share. The company's net worth turned negative during the fiscal year that ended last June 30 and it has since had two more quarters of losses. On Friday, it reported an $8.2 million loss, or 25 cents per share, for its second fiscal quarter, ending Dec. 31. Sales were $70.1 million. A year earlier, Commodore lost $77.2 million, or $2.33 per share, on sales of $237.7 million. The company said financial constraints hampered its ability to supply products, leading to weakened sales. Its Amiga CD32 video game machine sold poorly in Europe due to the bad economy. But the company said sales were stronger for its Amiga 1200 machine. For the six months ending Dec. 31, Commodore lost $17.9 million or 54 cents per share, compared to a loss of $96.0 million, or $2.90 per share, a year earlier. Sales for the six months were $152.7 million compared with $396.3 million in the year-ago period. Commodore began as a typewriter repair company in the Bronx borough of New York City 40 years ago. Its extension to the adding machine business paved the way for it to get make calculators and then personal computers by the mid-1970s. Commodore competed with Radio Shack for the first computers sold to homes and co-founder Jack Tramiel became a highly-regarded figure in the fledgling PC industry. But Commodore was pushed aside a few years later by the success of International Business Machines Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. Although Commodore was quick to adopt some of the popular graphical interfaces for its Amiga line, far fewer software developers created programs for its machines than for Apple or IBM-compatibles.