HOUSTON (AP) -- Electrical-equipment maker Cooper Industries Ltd. reported Tuesday a 38 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit and said it has more than doubled its work force cuts to 2,200 employees worldwide.
Net income was $111.1 million, or 65 cents per share, down from $179.3 million, or 98 cents per share, a year ago. The results include a pretax charge of $35.7 million, or 15 cents per share, primarily related to job eliminations. It also recorded a $9.1 million pretax impairment charge, or 4 cents per share, related to an investment in a joint venture operation.
Excluding the charges, it earned 84 cents per share.
Analysts, who generally exclude one-time items from their estimates, had predicted a profit of 72 cents per share.
Revenue fell 1.4 percent to $1.52 billion from last year.
Cooper, which is based in Houston, had said it would cut its work force by more than 1,000 employees and take a fourth-quarter charge of between $20 million and $22 million. However, as economic conditions worsened, Cooper's Chairman and CEO Kirk S. Hachigian said in a statement Tuesday that the company decided to cutback even more positions and take a restructuring charge of $35.7 million. The company employees about 31,000 people, according to its Web site.
For all of 2008, net income was $632.2 million, or $3.60 per share, down 8.7 percent from $692.3 million, or $3.73 per share, the previous year. Excluding items, it earned $3.59 per share from continuing operations.
Analysts expected earnings per share for the year to be $3.46.
Revenue for 2008 was $6.52 billion, up 10.5 percent from $5.9 billion the previous year.
