Alcatel shareholders meet on Lucent merger
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Alcatel shareholders flocked in record  numbers to take part in a vote on the French telecom equipment  firm's $10.9 billion deal to buy U.S. rival Lucent, as  executives prepared to take on harsh critics of the move.
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Alcatel-Lucent, a telecoms equipment giant valued at 21.5 billion euros (27 billion dollars), began life after the merger of French group Alcatel and its former US rival Lucent.
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(InfoWorld) - Lucent Technologies has averted a potentially embarrassing delay of its shareholder vote on a merger with Alcatel,Â settling two suits by shareholdersÂ who said the deal doesn't maximize shareholder value. Lucent and AlcatelÂ agreed in April to mergeÂ into a global communications vendor that would have about $25 billion in annual revenue. Both companies plan to hold shareholder votes to approve the deal on Thursday. Plaintiffs in Resnick vs. Lucent Technologies Inc. wanted to postpone Lucent's vote, and the company was due at a hearing Wednesday in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Union County to fight that move. Another group of shareholders pursuing a similar suit, Asa R. Maley Trust vs. Lucent, also would have joined the hearing. Now Lucent won't have to face the danger of a legal entanglement the day before its planned vote. Both suits were intended as class actions on behalf of owners of Lucent stock. Terms of the settlement Lucent reached with them will be disclosed later, the company said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The Lucent-Alcatel deal would be one of the biggest shifts yet in the consolidation of both service providers and vendors in the telecommunications industry. Both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission have approved the plan, but it still faces opposition from some investment firms and needs the blessing of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. Lucent is based in Murray Hill, New Jersey. The merged company, to be called Alcatel Lucent, would have its headquarters in Alcatel's base of Paris. Â ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Two of the world's biggest telecom gear makers have tied the knot, eight months after France's Alcatel SA announced plans to buy U.S. rival Lucent Technologies Inc. and create a global force that can cash in on hot "triple-play" services offering phone, TV and Internet together.
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By LAURENCE FROST  PARIS - Alcatel's purchase of U.S. rival Lucent Technologies Inc.
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AlcatelÂ shareholders have been urged by a French advisory group to reject theÂ proposed merger with Lucent Technologies, citing unfavorable financial and corporate governance terms.
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(InfoWorld) - Alcatel-Lucent, a global communications giant with combined annual revenue of more than US$24 billion, will debut Friday after a sometimes rocky engagement between Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. The deal closed Thursday,Â about eight months after it was announcedÂ and followingÂ national security concerns,Â investor lawsuitsÂ and one close shareholder vote. On Friday, the company is set to begin trading on the Euronext Paris exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ALU. Both companies were among the largest suppliers of wired and wireless infrastructure, and the combined entity boasts impressive statistics: 79,000 employees in 130 countries, about 23,000 of whom work in research and development, a services team of more than 18,000, and customer relationships with the 100 largest service providers in the world. The consolidation comes as carriers, the consumers of telecommunications gear, also combine into fewer and bigger entities. The new company will be incorporated in France and based in Paris but run by Chief Executive Officer Patricia Russo, the American outgoing chief of Lucent. Alcatel head Serge Tchuruk is a non-executive chairman of the board. Both were appointed Thursday. Bell Labs, Lucent's venerable research unit, will remain in New Jersey and a special business will be set up to handle sensitive U.S. government contracts. Alcatel will sell its satellite business to ease national security concerns in France. The deal came under fire from some investment firms and shareholders. In September, Lucent settled two proposed class-action lawsuits by investors that threatened to delay its shareholder vote, and the deal then passed with less than 52 percent of the vote. The last key hurdle was approval by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment In the U.S. (CFIUS), which earlier this month signed off on the deal on the condition that the companies execute national security agreements with certain U.S. government agencies. Alcatel-Lucent expects to gain significant savings within three years from cutting about 9,000 jobs, consolidating support functions, optimizing its supply and procurement system and leveraging its research and services operations across a larger base. The company will discuss the news on a webcast on Friday at 1 p.m. Central European Time (12 p.m. GMT).
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Adolph Coors Co. and Molson Inc. said Friday they have scheduled a Jan. 19 meeting for shareholders to vote on their plan to merge.
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Alcatel-Lucent's revenue fell for the fourth quarter and the company plunged into loss. The performance was disappointing, but theÂ long-term prospects of the mergerÂ of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies remain positive, the company said.
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InfoWorld - Alcatel-Lucent has invested in WiMax chip maker Sequans Communications, the latest show of support for the emerging long-range wireless networking technology.
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Lucent Technologies has averted a potentially embarrassing delay of its shareholder vote on a merger with Alcatel,Â settling two suits by shareholdersÂ who said the deal doesn't maximize shareholder value.
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Shareholders in ABN AMRO  will weigh three key events in the coming week to decide which of two rival bidders will clinch control of the Dutch bank after a six-month takeover battle.
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Newly merged telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent has reported a slump in underlying profits last year and ramped up planned job cuts to 12,500 or 15.6 percent of its global workforce.
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PARIS, February 27  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) and E-Plus announced today that the world's leading network integrator will be managing several network business divisions of Germany's third-largest mobile communications provider, E-Plus Mobilfunk.
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AMSTERDAM/LONDON  - ABN AMRO  said on Wednesday it would discuss with Barclays  the implications of a bid proposal this week by the consortium seeking to dislodge Barclays as ABN's preferred merger partner.
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By James Kanter  Shareholders have approved the merger between the telecommunications equipment makers Alcatel and Lucent, but only after Alcatel shareholders voiced strong doubts about the leadership and financial health of their new American partner.
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(InfoWorld) - AlcatelÂ shareholders have been urged by a French advisory group to reject theÂ proposed merger with Lucent Technologies, citing unfavorable financial and corporate governance terms. Proxinvest, which provides services for institutional investors holding shares in the French company, said strategic aspects of the deal make sense, but that the financial terms appear "quite unfavorable" to Alcatel shareholders and that the corporate governance conditions are "very disappointing." The group is against removing the age limit for the position of chairman, and a rule that a two-thirds majority of directors would be needed to dismiss the chairman or chief executive officer of the combined company. It made its recommendation in a letter to fund managers published on its Web site earlier this week. Proxinvest's views are at odds with that of a U.S. advisory group, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which supports the deal. Lucent and Alcatel shareholders are due to vote on the merger Sept. 7. In the U.S., meanwhile, a group of shareholders is trying to block the Lucent shareholder vote, arguing that the company's board of directors is failing to maximize shareholder value. A New Jersey Superior Court judge will consider on Sept. 6 whether to grant an injunction blocking the vote, according to a filing by Lucent with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. Lucent called the action without merit. The European Commission and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission have approved the merger, which was announced in April. The networking equipment vendors, which sell optical core switches, DSLAMs (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers) and other networking gear, would have had combined revenue of $25 billion for 2005. If the merger goes ahead, Lucent Chairman and CEO Pat Russo will become CEO of the company, which would be renamed Alcatel Lucent. Serge Tchuruk, chairman and CEO of Alcatel, would become its non-executive chairman. The merger would create a networking giant that will compete with Siemens and Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, among others. Lucent has a strong foothold in North America, while Alcatel has a strong customer base in Europe. The proposed merger comes after increased competition has put pressure on both companies' bottom lines. For its fiscal third quarter ending June 30,Â Lucent reported revenueÂ of $2.04 billion, compared with $2.14 billion in the previous quarter and $2.34 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Lucent attributed the decline to slower sales in North America and China. Alcatel'sÂ net income droppedÂ for its second quarter to â¬180 million ($226 million as of June 30, the last day of the period reported) from â¬196 million a year earlier. It's net revenue increased to â¬3.4 billion, from â¬3.1 billion a year earlier.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.