Seagate Technology Plc reported sharply lower profit on Wednesday as sales of its computer hard drives and storage devices fell and it recorded restructuring costs as it gears up for a massive share buyback after the failure of a private equity takeover deal.
The world's largest hard drive disk maker said net profit fell to $150 million, or 31 cents per share, compared with $533 million, or $1.03 per share, in the year-ago quarter.
Sales fell 10 percent to $2.7 billion.
Excluding some items such as restructuring costs, it reported earnings of 33 cents per share, matching Wall Street's average estimate.
Seagate's shares fell 3.7 percent in after-hours trading, after falling 3 percent in regular trading on Nasdaq.
The company, which makes a range of disk drives for computers and external storage devices, was in discussions with private equity firms over a potential $9 billion takeover last year, which ultimately fell through.
Instead, the company announced a $2 billion share buyback plan, partially financed by a $750 million debt offering in December.
On Wednesday, the company said it had agreed a $350 million revolving credit line with lenders.
Its report comes the day after rival Western Digital Corp, the world No. 2 hard-drive maker, warned that 6 million to 8 million unused hard drives in the personal computer supply chain could be causing a glut and hurt sales of new drives this quarter.
