Imation takes $310.2m hit in hellish, wallet-draining 4th quarter

$310.2m: That's Imation's fourth 2012 calendar quarter loss. $299.1m: That's Imation's fourth quarter revenue. It takes some brass to record results like these and talk of the company's strategic transformation but that's what happens when you rightsize over-valued assets. The chart below shows the scale of the disaster. Third …

[Silverburn]

Imation management having grown the annual loss by 800 per cent

Well done. Well done indeed. Bonuses all round?

<slow clap>

[LomaxFC]

Grammar pedantry

"Even on an annual compare"

The noun is 'comparison', I believe.

[Colin Millar]

Accelerated secular decline?

New one there.

Could he mean that it is now on primary (or even secondary) decline? Unlikely given that there is so little of the "traditional storage" market left - an accelerated decline would suggest that volumes were still high enough to provide a cliff to fall off.

Or does he mean that they ignored it for a long time hoping that something would come along and now they are having to face up to at least a decade's worth of decline in five minutes.

I recognise that management strategy - it's called the ostrich.

[Fihart]

Secular Decline ?

I looked it up and I still don't see any justification for using the term "secular decline".

I guess he meant "sector decline" but thought it sounded more inevitable (thus not his fault) as secular.

Dumb, meaningless, management-speak of that order suggests where the problem lies in much of industry.

[Mark Shaffer]

Re: Secular Decline ?

I'm not sure what you looked up, or where, but in economics, the term "secular" means simply "long-term", usually 10+ years. So a "secular decline" is a long-term decline. So why not just say that? Because it isn't sufficiently business jargonish, I guess.

[Colin Millar]

Re: Secular Decline ?

Strictly speaking FiHart is spot on. This is not a secular decline - it is a long-term sector decline set during a period much of which was characterised by secular growth.

Secular refers to whole markets or economies - not tiny little subsectors.

Although it was clear what he meant it was a lazy and inaccurate usage of the phrase.

[Mark Shaffer]

Re: Secular Decline ?

I agree, but I think this is one of those cases where the "lazy and inaccurate usage of the phrase" is overtaking the original meaning, in practice. It was clear what he meant for exactly this reason.

[Terry 6]

History

Isn't it Imation that marketted a super floppy disk drive ( in the days when we still used floppy discs), then sold the media so expensive that no one could afford to use them?

Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

New Nexsan storage?

How about launching a new Nexsan storage with 2000 Floppy drives?