Alcatel Declines as Buyer Said to Pare Bid for Enterprise Unit
September 05, 2011, 7:50 AM EDTBy Amy Thomson
Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Alcatel-Lucent, the software company in talks to sell its enterprise unit, fell for a second straight day in Paris trading after bidder Permira Advisers LLP was said to have decided against taking over the entire division.
Permira, which had been in exclusive talks to buy the enterprise unit, is now in non-exclusive talks for Genesys, the part of the unit that makes software for managing customer call centers, a person with direct knowledge of the talks said on Sept. 2. Permira is a London-based buyout fund. Alcatel-Lucent fell as much as 7.7 percent, after dropping 4.1 percent Sept. 2.
Alcatel-Lucent, a Paris-based networking company, has been looking for buyers for its enterprise unit for several months, and may raise about 1.5 billion euros ($2.12 billion), people close to the situation said on April 29. Siemens Enterprise Communications dropped out of talks for the entire unit about two months ago, another person familiar with the matter said.
Alcatel-Lucent dropped as much as 19.6 cents and traded 19.3 cents lower at 2.352 euros as of 11:16 a.m. The shares had risen 17 percent this year before today.
The company hasn’t reported an annual profit since 2005 and revenue has declined 10 percent since 2007, according to Bloomberg data. Chief Executive Officer Ben Verwaayen is looking to sell assets as part of a three-year turnaround plan for the company.
--With assistance by Serena Saitto in New York, Matthew Campbell in Paris and Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in London. Editors: Robert Valpuesta, Simon Thiel.
To contact the reporter on this story: Amy Thomson in London at athomson6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net
