Nortel restates for the fourth time

Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski is shaking his head with displeasure: Nortel announced that it must, once again, restate certain financial results. The officialese from the company claims that "third party actuarial calculation errors embedded in Nortel's North American pension and post-retirement plans and revenue incorrectly recognized in prior periods that should have been deferred to later periods." UBS Investment Research translated that for the industry: "Nortel understated historical pension expense by [about] $108 million over several years." Couple the news of the fourth accounting restatement in as many years with Nortel's recent CFO resignation as well as the recent announcement of an additional 2,900 job cuts, and you might say Nortel is in a bit of slump right now.

For more on Nortel's latest woes:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)