Alcatel-Lucent shakes up management, gives CEO and Chairman the boot

Two years after merging, Telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent has not posted a single profitable quarter. Following its second quarter 2008 earnings statement, a major executive shakeup has been announced for the company.

Though revenues and sales exceeded analyst expectations, so too did the company's net losses, which amounted to €1.1 billion. Bloomberg News analysts predicted a loss of only €135 million.

Alcatel-Lucent blamed the reduced spending of a "key customer" in the company's North American CDMA network business as a major contributor to the writedown. The French-American joint company last quarter blamed a "significant deterioration" in the Euro-dollar exchange rate for financial problems, which have only worsened.

Alcatel-Lucent announced today that as a part of its evolution, it will institute changes to its management team and board of directors. As a part of this, CEO Patricia F. Russo will run the company until her replacement is found, stepping down no later than the end of the year.

Non-Executive chairman Serge Tchuruk announced his October 2008 departure as well.

The Alcatel-Lucent board of directors will be reduced in size and certain members replaced. One of which, Lucent's former CEO Henry B. Schacht, will immediately step down. Schacht reportedly believes that as a former CEO, he should not remain now that the merger is beyond its transitional phase.