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Technology Stocks : Excel Switching Corporation (XLSW) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JakeStraw who wrote (208)	8/18/1999 8:52:00 AM
From: Ram Seetharaman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 222

Wednesday August 18 8:30 AM ET Lucent To Buy Excel Switching NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LU - news) has agreed to buy Excel Switching Corp. (Nasdaq:XLSW - news), a maker of programmable switches for telecommunications service providers, for $1.7 billion in stock, Lucent said Wednesday. The latest in its spate of acquisitions should help Lucent, the No. 1 telecommunications equipment maker, to assist service providers in bridging networks based on traditional, circuit-switched technology and new networks more suited to data transmission. Lucent has been on a buying spree lately. It closed its $24 billion purchase of Ascend Communications in June, and since then has announced over $5 billion in deals to buy smaller companies. Based on the $66.50 close of Lucent shares Tuesday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the deal is worth $37 an Excel share, a 34 percent premium to the $27.56 closing price of Excel shares Tuesday on Nasdaq. Under the terms of the deal, each share of Hyannis, Mass.-based Excel will be converted into 0.5580 shares of Lucent. ''They are a premier company in programmable switching with more than eleven years of experience and have one of the largest communities of application developers in the industry,'' Dan Stanzione, Lucent's chief operating officer, said of Excel in a statement. Lucent expects to complete the deal during its fiscal first quarter ending Dec. 31 and to account for the deal as a pooling of interests. Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent said the merger will have no effect on earnings in fiscal 2000. The merger is subject to the approval of Excel's shareholders and federal regulatory approval. Bob Madonna, Excel's chairman and chief executive, who still owns a majority of the shares, will take a position at Lucent supporting the company's programmable networking efforts, which will become a separate unit, Lucent said. Excel will keep its Hyannis headquarters. Excel, which employs about 460 people, targets its switches at new telecom service providers and established providers entering new markets.