Nortel had repeatedly pushed back the filing as it scrambled to restate several years of earnings. It blamed the loss on costs related to a new wireless contract in India and a restructuring program that is axing 3,250 jobs, but stressed the loss was in line with its previous estimate in December.

Sales meanwhile were 7% down year-on-year to $2.1 billion, from $2.34 billion. That was lower than the $2.3 billion that Nortel had predicted in December. Of the four units that made up the group, only the Enterprise Networks division increased its sales. The largest unit (Wireless Networks), plus the Wireline Networks and Optical Networks units, all reported sales falls.

Nortel’s decision to post its results after the markets closed on Friday raised eyebrows in certain quarters, as doing this is generally viewed as an attempt to minimize harsh stock market reactions. Nevertheless, shares in the company fell 4.7% to $2.83 on the New York Stock Exchange as of Monday 3.15pm GMT. During the height of the dot-com frenzy, the company’s stock price reached $124.50.

It is somewhat understandable that Nortel wished to limit the impact of any more bad news, as for the past year it had been mired in an accounting scandal that required the restatement of its figures for the past four years.

Nortel is still facing a class action suit in the US courts, as well as regulatory and criminal investigations into its accounts. Securities regulators, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the US Attorney’s office are all conducting probes.

The troubles started for the telecoms equipment giant back in October 2003, when Nortel announced that it was restating its financial results. The company undertook an independent review of the figures after suggestions that its losses were exaggerated during the industry downturn in 2001 and 2002 to give a misleading impression of the strength of its recovery in 2003.

In January 2004, it reported its yearly results for 2003. However, the figures were soon found to be erroneous. In April 2004, Nortel fired CEO Frank Dunn, former CFO Douglas Beatty, and controller Michael Gollogly. It also fired seven senior executives with responsibilities for financial reporting. All were terminated for cause. Nortel is currently suing Mr Dunn, and two other former senior managers, for the return of millions in bonuses paid out.

As indicated above, the troubles devastated the company’s share price, and Nortel axed 3,500 jobs, or roughly 10% of its remaining 36,000 workforce.

In early January this year, Nortel finally reported its results for the year ending December 31, 2003. For the year, it posted a net profit of $434 million for 2003, rather than the previously reported profit of $732 million. But the new figures showed revenue higher at $10.2 billion versus the $9.81 billion initially reported for 2003.

Meanwhile, Nortel is making progress in catching up on its financial filings. It now intends to provide audited results for all of 2004 by the end of April.

Yet it has to be said that the accounting scandal has left Nortel Networks looking a little vulnerable, with a market capitalization of $12.68 billion. Compare this to its rival Cisco Systems, which has a market value of $115 billion, plus nearly $7 billion of cash in the bank.