<<GH TECH Pressure mounts for Newbridge sale
Frontrunner Alcatel ponders risks
James Bagnall
The Ottawa Citizen
With Newbridge Networks Corp. expected to report its third-quarter results in only six days, pressure is building on the Kanata firm to either wrap up efforts to sell itself or get on with life as a standalone company.
Newbridge officials have told analysts for months there's no real urgency -- provided Newbridge's top executives remain comfortable they'll get a good result.
That's still the party line, but it's being tempered with concern about the restlessness of key workers, some of whom are making their way to California to join startups run by former Newbridge executives.
The longer the uncertainty over Newbridge's ultimate fate, the more frequent such departures will become.
Newbridge has scheduled a meeting of its board of directors for Tuesday, when solid, but unspectacular, third-quarter numbers are expected to be released.
Th directors might be asked the same day to consider a bid from one or more contenders interested in buying Newbridge.
But it seems unlikely that the acquiring firm would announce earnings and a takeover on the same day.
To date, the company expressing the most interest in Newbridge -- if the number of visits by senior executives is anything to go by -- is Alcatel S.A., the Paris-based telecommunications equipment giant.
Alcatel is doing an unusual amount of due diligence on Newbridge, at least in part because the transaction would be the biggest data-networking acquisition ever undertaken by the French company.
Alcatel has bought five networking firms in the U.S. in the past 18 months, and the largest of these, Dallas-based DSC Communications Corp., cost it $4.4 billion U.S.
Even at yesterday's closing price of $33 3/4 on the New York Stock Exchange, Newbridge is valued at $6 billion U.S. Alcatel would almost certainly pay a premium over this.
Stakes such as this are making Alcatel's senior executives think long and hard about the potential risks of buying Newbridge. Alcatel's U.S. managers, which operate out of the Dallas area, are more than familiar with Newbridge's record for missing financial projections.
Some -- it's not clear how influential -- have been weighing in with arguments against doing a deal. Another mark against a potential Newbridge-Alcatel linkup is the risk associated with trying to integrate such a widely dispersed operation. However, Alcatel's top executive, Serge Tchuruk, is said to be in favour buying Newbridge -- viewing its asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching technology as a useful addition to Alcatel's growing stable of data networking products.
In recent days, discussions have also involved officials from Siemens AG of Munich and LM Ericsson of Sweden.
Interestingly, Mr. Tchuruk appointed Glenn Estes on Dec. 1 to take on the job of developing network strategy for Alcatel. Mr. Estes was a former vice-president of technology for SBC Communications Inc. That's the San Antionio-based telephone giant that happens to be one of Newbridge's largest single customers.
If Newbridge follows the pattern typical of other bidding contests, it will have set a deadline -- possibly as early as this week -- by which it will consider all final offers.
>>>
|
