BELEAGUERED telecoms group Marconi - which is axing 570 jobs at Poole - made a £5.1 billion loss in the last half year, it confirmed today.

The £5.1 billion loss for the six months to September 30 equates to £28 million a day.

The figure includes one-off costs and write downs and compares with a £66 million loss the previous year.

Sales slumped 19 per cent to £2.58 billion against the same period in 2000.

Today's results come ahead of up to 200 more redundancies at Poole next month.

Chief executive Mike Parton said: "We have not anticipated any upturn for this year or next year in the markets. "If the upturn comes we will be very pleased but in our business plan we have not anticipated an upturn next year (the calendar year 2002)."

But he added: "We are very confident of weathering this downturn. We are positioning ourselves to ride out this downturn."

The crisis-stricken communications giant faces having to repay virtually all its £4.4 billion debts by March 30 unless it can obtain refinancing.

Shareholders face losing their investments - sidelined helplessly as Marconi struggles to remain solvent.

Marconi is fighting to retain assets in a three-way battle with its consortium of 31 banks and a tier of bondholders.

The fear is that shareholders will be left with nothing after the banks - led by Barclays and HSBC - and the bondholders have taken their share of the remaining assets.

In December the second tranche of up to 200 Poole workers is expected to leave the doomed Discovery Court site at Wallisdown for the last time.

Marconi, which is closing Discovery Court with the loss of 570 jobs, made the first third of the workforce redundant last month.

The remainder of staff will go on December 31 and March 31.