Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Alcatel (ALA) and France -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: larry pollock who wrote (3288)	5/20/2001 5:17:52 PM
From: larry pollock	Respond to of 3891

Lucent Should Take Alcatel Bid, Even at $34 Bln, Investors Say By George Stein Murray Hill, New Jersey, May 19 (Bloomberg) -- Lucent Technologies Inc., after a year of losses and an 81 percent stock drop, should accept an offer to merge with rival Alcatel SA even if it doesn't get a premium, investors said. The No. 1 U.S. phone-equipment maker may sell itself to Alcatel at its current market value of $34 billion, people familiar with the companies said yesterday. The Paris-based company may offer stock valued at less than $10 for each share, compared to Lucent's per-share high of $77.78 just 18 months ago. That might be the best bid Lucent will receive, some Lucent holders said. Lucent had a loss of $3.69 billion last quarter, and the company is shedding businesses to reduce about $3 billion in debt and keep its credit rating from falling to junk status. ``You might not be getting the most out of this franchise, but you might be getting less in the future,'' said Steve Mygrant, a money manager with Fifth Third Bancorp, which owns more than $10 million in Lucent stock. The shares of Lucent rose 14 cents to $9.95 yesterday on reports Alcatel may purchase the Murray Hill, New Jersey-based company. Alcatel shares fell 2.6 euros, or 7.2 percent, to 33.4 euros, valuing the company at 40.5 billion euros ($35.7 billion). Mary Lou Ambrus, a spokeswoman for Lucent spokeswoman, and Alcatel spokesman Brian Murphy declined to comment. Schacht and Tchuruk A combination with France's Alcatel, Europe's No. 4 telephone- gear maker, may help Lucent keep customers amid a drop in demand, analysts said. In the past year, Lucent fell from its rank as the world's biggest telecommunications-equipment maker as Nortel Networks Corp. and Ciena Corp. lured customers with more-advanced fiber optics. Lucent ``is realizing they face what will be a really terrible overall equipment market over the next two years,'' said Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Paul Sagawa, who rates Lucent an ``outperform.'' Henry Schacht, the 66-year-old chairman who returned to run Lucent after Richard McGinn was ousted as chief executive last year, said in an interview last week that he doesn't want to break Lucent up. The company is spinning off its Agere Systems Inc. unit and some analysts say Lucent might be worth more if split apart. Alcatel Chief Executive Serge Tchuruk, 63, who also faces falling sales, shares and possible credit-rating downgrades, would thrust Alcatel into the top rankings if he bought Lucent. `Playing Big' Since 1998, when Alcatel shares plunged 38 percent in one day after the company said it was lagging rivals in its home European market, Tchuruk has spent $16 billion on acquisitions and pushed Alcatel into the U.S. to compete with Lucent, Nortel and others. ``This would be a bold move,'' said Benoit Flamant, who helps manage about $400 million at IT Asset Management in Paris. ``Alcatel is playing big. Either Alcatel becomes a world leader in telecommunications equipment, or they fail.'' A merger of the two companies could be eased because top executives at Alcatel and Lucent have worked at both companies. Alcatel Chief Operating Officer Krish Prahbu, began his telecommunications career with Bell Laboratories, then AT&T Corp.'s research and development arm and now part of Lucent. Denys Gounot, president of Lucent Optical Fiber Solutions, the division for sale, is a French citizen and a former Alcatel executive. Gounot held several senior management positions at the company, including chief operating officer of Alcatel Cable. Alcatel has said it bid for Lucent's fiber-and-cable unit, which analysts value at between $4 billion and $6 billion. Lucent is selling the business to cut debt. Still, Lucent's willingness to merge at the same time it's working to turn itself around, could signal that Lucent may be seeing even less demand for telecommunications equipment than it expected, making a combination more enticing, some analysts said. Realistic Scenario Merger or acquisition talks ``are a sign things are very bad,'' said Walt Casey, an analyst with Banc One Investment Advisors, which owns Lucent shares. ``If there's little or no premium, that means that the people inside Lucent think that it's worth even less'' than Lucent's current market value. The proposed transaction with Alcatel is considered a merger of equals, the people familiar with the companies' talks said. Alcatel and Lucent shareholders each would own about half the combined company, the people said. Lucent's board will decide next week whether to pursue the talks, the Financial Times reported today, without citing its sources. The talks began several weeks ago and could stretch out or break off, the people said. ``I'm not convinced this is a realistic scenario for either company,'' said Christin Armacost, an analyst at SG Cowen Securities Corp. who has a ``buy'' rating on Lucent shares. ``Even if Alcatel can turn the company around better than Lucent can, there's going to be a period of significant cash infusion that would drain Alcatel's resources.''

To: larry pollock who wrote (3288)	5/22/2001 1:36:18 PM
From: larry pollock	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3891

AT&T Deploys CIENA's MultiWave Metro Intelligent Optical Transport Systems LINTHICUM, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2001--CIENA Corporation (NASDAQ:CIEN - news), a global provider of intelligent optical networking systems and software, today announced that AT&T has successfully tested, certified and begun deployment of CIENA's MultiWave Metro(TM) intelligent optical transport system. AT&T provides competitive local services to business customers in 71 major markets nationwide and plans to deploy CIENA's MultiWave Metro platform in a number of those networks to provide up to 24 wavelengths of protected OC-48 or OC-192 capacity per fiber. AT&T already is carrying ``live'' customer traffic using CIENA systems in its Los Angeles metro network. ``MultiWave Metro provides the capacity and flexibility needed to support the next generation of advanced communications services,'' said George Gawrys, transport network planning director for AT&T. ``CIENA's expertise in optical networking technology will help ensure AT&T's continued delivery of cost-effective and reliable high-speed data services across our metropolitan area networks.'' ``As one of the world's leading providers of voice, Internet, data and video services, AT&T requires optimal network performance. We're pleased AT&T has selected CIENA to help build its metropolitan networks with intelligent solutions for greater speed, capacity and efficiency,'' said Gary Smith, president and chief executive officer for CIENA. MultiWave Metro is a leading system for high-capacity (up to 10Gbps) optical service transport and protection in metropolitan networks. The Metro platform supports multiple topologies, protocols and protection arrangements on the same fiber pair and in the same network node. Its open, standards-based architecture allows it to interface easily with all types of SONET/SDH, ATM and Fast IP equipment and is designed to be an ideal platform for providing ESCON, Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet and rate-adaptive Gigabit Ethernet, FICON and digital video services. ABOUT CIENA CIENA Corporation's market-leading optical networking systems form the core for the new era of networks and services worldwide. CIENA's LightWorks(TM) architecture enables next-generation optical services and changes the fundamental economics of service-provider networks by simplifying the network and reducing the cost to operate it. Additional information about CIENA can be found at www.ciena.com. ABOUT AT&T AT&T (www.att.com) is among the world's premier voice, video, and data communications companies, serving consumers, businesses, and government. AT&T has annual revenues of nearly $66 billion and 162,000 employees, and provides services to customers worldwide. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company runs the world's largest, most sophisticated communications network, is the largest cable operator in the U.S., and has one of the largest, digital wireless networks in North America. The company is a leading supplier of data and Internet services for businesses and offers outsourcing, consulting, and networking-integration to large businesses. Concert, the AT&T/BT Global Venture, serves the communications needs of multinational companies and international carriers worldwide. In October 2000, AT&T announced a restructuring plan to create a family of four businesses, each operating under the AT&T brand, committed to uniform standards of quality. Under the plan, which is expected to be completed in 2002, each of these four businesses will become publicly held, trading as either a common stock or a tracking stock. NOTE TO INVESTORS This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions of CIENA (the Company) that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this release, including, but not limited to, the use of CIENA's MultiWave Metro platform in a number of AT&T's networks to provide up to 24 wavelengths of protected OC-48 or OC-192 capacity per fiber, MultiWave Metro's ability to provide the capacity and flexibility needed to support the next generation of advanced communications services, the ability of CIENA's expertise in optical networking technology to help ensure AT&T's continued delivery of cost-effective and reliable high-speed data services across its metropolitan networks, the ability of the Metro platform to support multiple topologies, protocols and protection arrangements on the same fiber pair and in the same network node, the ability of Metro's open, standards-based architecture to allow it to interface easily with all types of SONET/SDH, ATM and Fast IP equipment and that Metro is designed to be an ideal platform for providing ESCON, Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet and rate-adaptive Gigabit Ethernet, FICON and digital video services, and the cost savings, deployment timing and network management benefits of the Company's products, are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in such forward-looking statements, due to risks and uncertainties associated with the Company's business, which include the risk factors disclosed in the Company's Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 17, 2001. Forward looking statements include statements regarding the Company's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward looking words such as ``anticipate,'' ``believe,'' ``could,'' ``estimate,'' ``expect,'' ``intend,'' ``may,'' ``should,'' ``will,'' and ``would'' or similar words. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact: CIENA Corporation Press Contacts: Denny Bilter or Aaron Graham, 877/857-7377 pr@ciena.com or Investor Contacts: Suzanne DuLong or Jessica Towns, 888/243-6223 ir@ciena.com Email this story - Most-emailed articles - Most-viewed article NOTE: I HAVE POSTED THIS ARTICLE FOR GENERAL INFORMATION, AND TO BE INFORMED ABOUT INDUSTRY ACTIVITIES.