Shares of beleaguered Nortel Networks hit rock bottom Friday, with the telecom infrastructure supplier's stock hitting a split-adjusted all-time low.

Nortel shares dipped as low as $6.64 on the TSX in intraday trading and closed at $6.71, down 44 cents. The previous all-time low for Nortel stock was reached on Oct. 10, 2002, when the stock hit 67 cents.

Nortel 3-month trading chart

A subsequent one-for-10 stock consolidation meant that 67 cents then is equivalent to $6.70 now.

It's hard to imagine that Nortel shares were once so high that the company's stock accounted for more than a third of the value of the entire benchmark index of the TSX. 

On July 26, 2000, its shares were trading for as much as $124.50. That's equivalent, on a split-adjusted basis, to $1,245 in today's market.

So Friday's $6.71 closing price equates to a loss of 99.5 per cent of the company's market value in less than eight years. Where its market worth was once close to $400 billion, it is now less than $3 billion.

The dot-com bust was responsible for a lot of the slide, but not all of it. Nortel shares began a long and relentless plunge amid a variety of legal, accounting, regulatory and business problems.

"It's been losing market share in core markets consistently," said Conor Bill, managing director at Mt. Auburn Capital. "People are also worried about the slowdown in the U.S. and how that's going to affect orders for infrastructure equipment such as the things Nortel sells."    

Last week, the Toronto-based company announced 2,100 layoffs — the latest in a long series of work reductions and restructurings that have seen the company chop 70,000 jobs since 2001.

Company CEO Mike Zafirovski called it "a challenging environment."