Alcatel-Lucent names new management

Alcatel-Lucent named its new top management on Tuesday as Philippe Camus, a former key executive at planemaker Airbus's parent EADS, and Ben Verwaayen, the former head of British Telecom.
The world's biggest provider of fixed-line telecoms networks said in a statement that Camus, a senior partner at French media group Lagardere, would replace Serge Tchuruk as non-executive chairman as of October 1, while Verwaayen would take over as chief executive replacing Patricia Russo, who was ousted along with Tchuruk in July.
Alcatel has issued a string of profit and sales warnings and seen its market value melt more than 60 percent since it started operating as a combined business in December 2006 following Alcatel's acquisition of the U.S. group Lucent.
Investors have been pushing hard for many months to get rid of Russo and Tchuruk. In May shareholders publicly criticized the pair and approved measures that made it easier to dump them.
Alcatel-Lucent's shares closed at 4.30 euros on Monday, valuing the group at 9.98 billion euros ($14.6 billion). The stock, which has gained 30 percent since mid-July, is still down 13 percent since the start of the year.