BT plans to cut 15,000 more jobs

British telecoms carrier BT cut its dividend and announced 15,000 further job losses on Thursday after a 1.58 billion pound ($2.4 billion) writedown tipped it into a quarterly loss and its pension costs almost doubled.

The writedown is to be taken at its Global Services unit, which supplies the IT needs of multinational companies and which the company had for years striven to make its growth engine.

The group also said it would almost double its pension contributions to 525 million pounds ($794.1 million) a year.

BT, which has twice previously in the past year warned about profits at the Global Services unit, said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation and contract and financial review charges were 1.35 billion pounds, down 14 per cent.

Profit before tax on an adjusted basis was down 40 per cent and on a reported basis showed a 1.28 billion pound loss. To help meet its increased pension obligations, BT cut its final dividend to 1.1 pence to give a full year dividend of 6.5 pence, which was down 59 per cent on last year.

The pension contributions will almost double from the previous 280 million pound annual payment to 525 million pounds a year for the next three financial years.

BT has been engaged in a three-yearly pension review to establish the size of its deficit and what it should contribute to the scheme on an annual basis, based on its asset values and liabilities.