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

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (249)	11/30/1998 10:13:00 AM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3891

(UPDATE) France's Alcatel, U.K.'s GEC Reported To Study $49.6 Billion Merger Dow Jones Online News, Monday, November 30, 1998 at 09:11 LONDON -(Dow Jones)- British electronics giant General Electric Co. PLC and French telecommunications concern Alcatel SA reportedly are considering a merger valued at 30 billion pounds ($49.6 billion), London's Sunday Times reported. The Times reported a merger with Alcatel (ALA) would bring GEC's core Marconi defense electronics arm closer to French group Thomson-CSF SA, the recently privatized defense-electronics group 16% owned by Alcatel. A source close to Alcatel earlier this month denied a report in The Guardian, another U.K. paper, that the French telecommunications group has held talks with GEC, which isn't related to General Electric Co. (GE) of the U.S. That story said GEC wanted to diversify into the communications business and its Chief Executive, George Simpson, had held talks with French partners, including Alcatel. GEC and Alcatel already share equal stakes of 25% in a joint venture, Anglo-French engineering group Alstom (ALS). After the Guardian report was released, analysts said GEC was more likely to be considering a venture with Thomson-CSF. French state-owned industrial group Thomson SA holds a 43% stake in Thomson-CSF. The analysts said some of Thomson-CSF's activities would mesh well with the defense-electronics and satellite interests of the British company. And it would strengthen both companies' positions against U.S. competitors. Alcatel continues to be under a cloud after it surprised shareholders with a profit warning after reporting poor first-half results Sept. 17. The shares fell 38% on the Paris stock market that day. The company had said its 1998 operating profit would fall about 1.5 billion francs short of estimates because of canceled equipment orders from big telephone operators and a deepening of the Asian and Russian economic crises. Alcatel and other equipment makers must face up to a more fundamental problem: The big, incumbent phone operators are cutting back or delaying infrastructure investments in the face of growing competition at home and uncertainty in Asian and Russian markets. The company was hit particularly hard by canceled orders from Deutsche Telekom AG. The German giant has deferred investing in certain "local access" infrastructure because it is currently forced by regulators to lease that portion of its network to rivals at low cost. Alcatel, France's once-struggling trains-to-telecommunications conglomerate, has been trying to reinvent itself as a high-tech company. It sold off loads of businesses and is expanding its satellite operations. The company recently purchased Texas-based telecom-equipment firm DSC Communications Corp. for about $4.4 billion in stock. Separately Monday, Alcatel said it has received a contract worth one billion francs from French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales and European meteorology organization Eumetsat. Copyright (c) 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (249)	11/30/1998 10:28:00 AM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 3891

Australia's Boral Gets Approval For A$30M Power Plant Dow Jones Newswires -- November 29, 1998 SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--Boral Energy Ltd., a division of Australian building materials and energy concern Boral Ltd. (BORAY), Monday said it has received approval to go ahead with its A$30 million redevelopment of the Roma power plant in Queensland state. The company said it received final approval from the local council last week to develop an old diesel plant at Roma into a 75 megawatt gas fired plant. The power turbines for the plant are scheduled to arrive at a Brisbane port in early December, and will be installed in Roma immediately with commissioning expected in February 1999, Boral Energy said in a statement. "The two clean natural gas fired turbines will be supplied through a new pipeline connecting to the Wallumbilla gas transmission pipeline," the General Manager of Major Industry and Power at Boral Energy, Andrew Stock said. "Boral Energy is currently constructing this 14 kilometer spur line alongside the Carnarvon Highway to the power station site," he added. The Australian unit of France's Alstom SA (ALS) has been commissioned to build the site. At 0340 GMT, shares in Boral were down one cent at A$2.43. The All Ordinaries Index was 0.4% higher at 2781.8 points. -By Graham Morgan; 61-2-9262-2622; gmorgan@ap.org

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (249)	11/30/1998 10:30:00 AM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 3891

Alcatel Gets FRF1 Bln Contract From French Space Agency>ALA Dow Jones Newswires -- November 30, 1998 PARIS (Dow Jones)--French telecommunication equipment supplier Alcatel (ALA) said Monday it has received a FRF1 billion contract from French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales and European meteorology organization Eumetsat. The contract involves supplying three infrared atmospheric sounding interferometer for weather satellites, Alcatel said in a statement.