French equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent is reportedly exploring a sale of its enterprise division, as part of a plan to offload €1bn of assets by 2015.
Lazard has been mandated to find a buyer, according to Reuters citing people familiar with the…
French equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent is reportedly exploring a sale of its enterprise division, as part of a plan to offload €1bn of assets by 2015.
Lazard has been mandated to find a buyer, according to Reuters citing people familiar with the situation.
Alcatel declined to comment on the report.
More than two years ago, the manufacturer had already considered a sale of the then loss-making unit but found no buyers. Instead, it parted with call centre business Genesys by selling it to private equity firm Permira for US$1.5bn.
When announcing its third-quarter results in late October, Alcatel CEO Michel Combes confirmed the company is forging ahead with plans to sell assets worth €1bn (US$1.4bn) by 2015.
Earlier this year, Alcatel launched a plan to generate €1bn in fixed-cost savings, which includes 10,000 job cuts, as well as €2bn in debt re-profiling over the 2013-2015 period, and future debt reductions of €2bn.
As part of this turnaround strategy, Alcatel-Lucent recently said it is looking to raise a total US$2.72bn in both equity and debt financing.
Alcatel has been facing intense competition from European and Chinese rivals. Combes previously said he wants to reposition the loss-making company from a telecoms equipment generalist to “an industrial specialist in IP networking and ultra-broadband access”.
Since the recovery programme was announced in mid-June, Alcatel’s shares have gone up about 100%.
