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Advanced Micro posts big loss, president resigns

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 14 (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD - news), battered by an intense computer chip price war with Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news), on Wednesday posted a big operating loss for the second quarter and said its president was resigning.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Advanced Micro, which warned last month that it would post a big loss, posted a loss of $162 million, or $1.10 per share, excluding one-time gains. In last year's second quarter, Advanced Micro posted a loss of $64.6 million, or 45 cents a share. Wall Street analysts had expected the company to post a loss of $1.26 a share.

While the loss was expected, the sudden resignation of President S. Atiq Raza was a shock. The company said Raza was resigning for personal reasons and would begin a leave of absence Monday. Raza also resigned his seat on AMD's board.

``Atiq was a key person in bringing back credibility for the company and now it's same-old same-old,'' said Ashok Kumar, analyst at US Bancorp Piper Jaffray. ``This is unfortunate. Clearly the company was positioning itself for a turnaround and without the captain at the helm it's very difficult.''

Excluding one-time items, AMD posted a net profit of $79.9 million, or 53 cents a share, for the latest quarter. That included an after-tax gain of $259 million from the sale of Vantis, the company's programmable logic subsidiary, and reflected an operating loss of $173 million, AMD said. Sales rose to $595 million from $526.5 million,

As it had forecast several weeks ago, AMD reported sales of 3.7 million of its K6 family processors, down from 4.3 million units in the first quarter of this year. Average selling prices for the K6 processors fell to $67 vs. $78 in the first quarter of 1999.