You gotta love it when you're going broke but you have good lawyers.
Background first:
Alcatel is a French telecommunications company, which of late has been beleaguered by competition of increasing stiffness, largely due to the fact that Alcatel's R&D department sucks, with a capital $.
Lucent Technologies was, at one time, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard Co., and originally formed to R&D and manufacture more efficient modems. They expanded to design and manufacture of all levels of telecommunications hardware, and were spun off by HP into a separate corporate entity a few years ago.
However, Lucent is a little strapped for cash, since the latest round of patent lawsuits has kind of beaten them down, and their expertise has become their marketable commodity.
A match made in heaven, you say? Alcatel's $$ in exchange for a proven R&D team and a manufacturing unit of reputable stature? What a great idea!
Which is why Alcatel is buying Lucent.
Here's where things get interesting. Somehow, despite the fact that this is a straight buyout by Alcatel, the Lucent Tech lawyers owned their ass. Literally. Under the terms of the buyout deal, the board of directors will consist of:
- 7 board members from Alcatel
- 7 board members from Lucent
- 2 board members "from Europe" to be appointed at a later date
- the board chairman, who does not get a vote.
The new company's CEO will be the current CEO of LUCENT.
This is like if you bought my company, got demoted, relegated to a non-voting administrative position - a glorified secretary, in specific - and I replaced you, after you paid for the privilege.
WOW.
Lucent, remind me not to get sued by you for any reason at all, ever. You'd probably end up owning my wife.
