Bankruptcy court approves Lucent's Riverstone bid

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 26 March 2006 15:09

IT Industry - Deals

Lucent Technologies' Purchase of Riverstone Networks' assets has been approved by bankruptcy court.

Lucent says that integration of the assets will make it "an industry leader in carrier-grade ethernet solutions, supporting delivery of new high-speed 'triple play' services for businesses and consumers."

Lucent notes that analysts have estimated that the carrier-grade ethernet market will grow from just over $US4 billion in 2005 to more than $US7 billion by 2008.

Riverstone assets to be acquired include primarily its products, intellectual property, certain contracts and receivables, tangible long-lived assets, accounts payable and certain other accrued liabilities. Assets excluded are cash, investments and debt. Substantially all of Riverstone's 400 employees are expected to join Lucent.

Lucent says that Riverstone's carrier ethernet platforms also complement its IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and broadband access portfolios, and will "enable operators to leverage end-to-end, ethernet-based architectures that support the delivery of business, residential and next-generation broadband services at lower cost with superior quality of service (QoS), performance and reliability."

The court order is subject to an objection period of 10 days, and the transaction remains subject to the receipt of certain regulatory approvals in Germany, which the company anticipates could happen early in April. Lucent received Federal Trade Commission approval of the purchase on March 17.