Alcatel-Lucent's Hagenlocker, Halbron Resign From Board

PARIS -(Dow Jones)- Alcatel-Lucent said directors Ed Hagenlocker and Jean-Pierre Halbron will leave the Franco-American telecommunication equipment maker as it acts on its promise to revamp its board.

Alcatel-Lucent said in July it would overhaul its board of directors to bring in fresh blood and reduce its size after Serge Tchuruk and Patricia Russo said they were stepping down as chairman and chief executive respectively.

Tchuruk and Russo said they were leaving the company, formed by the 2006 marriage of Alcatel SA of France and Lucent Technologies of Murray Hill, New Jersey, in order to allow it to acquire "a personality of its own" as it seeks to put its transatlantic merger travails behind it.

Former BT Group Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen has taken over from Russo while Philippe Camus will replace Tchuruk Oct. 1.

Hagenlocker, a U.S. national and former director at Lucent Technologies whose tenure on the board was due to expire in 2010, will leave immediately, Alcatel-Lucent said in a statement Friday.

Halbron, a French national who held various executive positions at Alcatel SA between 1995 and 2002, will depart after the close of the October board meeting to approve third-quarter results. Halbron was first appointed to the board of Alcatel SA in 1999 and was also due to stay until 2010 under his current mandate.

A spokesman for Alcatel-Lucent said it was unclear at this stage whether or not either director would be replaced.

-By Jethro Mullen and Ruth Bender, Dow Jones Newswires; +33140171740; jethro.mullen@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

Posted to the site on 18th September 2008