 That year, Jack Donnell began eliminating some of the communications and publishing properties and whittled down the list of subsidiaries to a level the company could function with.Charter had net earnings of $53.89 million, or $2.01 a share in 1983.In 1984, the company reported a net loss of $749.34 million, $685 million of which the company attributed to discontinued operations, the expenses of filing for bankruptcy and provisions for estimated losses on disposal of assets which were partially offset by gains on assets sold.