(BARC) Barclays

BLUE BELL, Pa. (AP) - Unisys Corp., an information technology consulting company, posted a first-quarter profit on Wednesday, reversing a year-ago loss, and announced plans for another round of job cuts in the U.S. and the U.K.

Unisys, which also makes computer servers, earned $3.6 million, or a penny per share, up from a loss of $27.9 million, or 8 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

Revenue fell 3 percent to $1.35 billion from $1.39 billion.

Analysts, on average, were expecting a loss of 2 cents per share on sales of $1.39 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

The company took a pretax charge of $32.7 million during the quarter to cover plans to lay off 950 employees, mainly in the U.S. and in the U.K. Meanwhile, Unisys is beefing up operations in cheaper markets such as India, China and Eastern Europe. The company hired about 1,200 workers in these regions, primarily India, in 2006, a spokesman said.

Unisys cut 4,900 jobs in 2006, with plans for a total of about 5,600 by the second quarter of this year. Of these, about 250 remain after the company laid off 450 workers during the first quarter. Unisys also added about 200 to 300 jobs during that period, mainly in India. At the end of the first quarter, the company had about 30,500 employees.

The most recent quarter's results also included a $23.7 million pretax gain on the sale of its media business, a $39.4 million tax benefit and a $23.5 million pretax retirement expense.

The year-ago quarter included a pretax gain of $149.9 million on a sale, offset by a $145.9 million pretax restructuring charge and a pretax retirement expense of $13.5 million.

The company said foreign currency exchange rates boosted revenue by about 3 percentage points for the quarter.

Service orders saw a "double-digit" decline during the quarter, the company said, due mainly to decreased orders in outsourcing, consulting and systems integration.

Shares fell 3 cents to $8.89 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.