Worst Three Month Loss Ever

Even amid the gloom surrounding steel profit reports, Bethlehem Steel's third-quarter net loss of $477 million, announced last week, stood out as one for the record book: it was the largest three-month loss ever reported by a U.S. corporation. If the company had not been able to take advantage of $417 million in tax credits, the red ink would have totaled $894 million, far exceeding even the full-year loss of $560.2 million that the bankrupt Penn Central reported in 1971.

Most of the Bethlehem losses stemmed from $750 million in pretax charges caused by the company's moves to cut production capacity by 10%. Most important: a $483 million write-off to cover pension and benefit payments to 12,000 workers put out of jobs.

Even without the onetime write-ofis, the No. 2 steelmaker lost $104 million on operations in the third quarter, v. a profit of $45.5 million in the 1976 period.

Like other steelmakers, Bethlehem has been hurt by strikes in coal and iron-ore mines, sluggish orders from the construction and capital-goods industries -- and most of all by fierce competition from low-priced steel made in Europe and Japan.

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