Lucent near merger with Ascend in $16bn deal - FT
Sunday January 10, 10:45 pm Eastern Time
biz.yahoo.com
WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Lucent Technologies Inc (NYSE:LU - news) is close to announcing a merger with Ascend Communications (Nasdaq:ASND - news) in a deal likely to be valued at more than $16 billion, the London-based Financial Times reports in Monday editions.
The Financial Times quoted sources close to the talks as saying that an announcement was likely to be made this week, possibly as early as Wednesday.
Under the merger deal, Lucent, with a market capitalization of about $152 billion, will take over Ascend, which is valued at about $15.5 billion, the paper said.
The newspaper said Ascend shareholders were expected to welcome the deal, which would likely include a premium.
Talks between the companies are said to have been going for several weeks, according to the newspaper report. The sources said that while talks were now reaching an advanced stage, they could still fall apart.
Lucent, formerly part of AT&T (NYSE:T - news), is one of the oldest suppliers of traditional telephone equipment. Ascend's background is in data networking equipment for linking computers.
Ascend is said by analysts to have strengths in two particularly fast-growing areas asynchronous transfer mode and internet protocol routing technology. |
