IBM Deutschland GmbH declined comment on a report in the new weekly magazine Focus that it will report the first loss in its history for 1992, Reuter reports from Stuttgart – and we will all have to wait a long time to find out because the German figures will not be released until April; according to advance text of the article released on Sunday IBM Deutschland chairman Hans-Olaf Henkel told a group of about 300 managers on January 12 that 1992 was a disappointing year for IBM all over the world and that in Germany the decline was especially sharp; Henkel reportedly told the top managers that extraordinary factors including costs tied to the 1,200 jobs eliminated at a Berlin plant, had a considerable impact on the results, and that new business dropped sharply in the second half and profit margins were squeezed by growing price competition for personal computers.
