Alcatel-Lucent Earnings Dwarfed by Qualcomm Venture, Turnaround Enhancement

The company lost some 885 million euros during its second quarter. The number appears to be influenced by restructuring charges and impairment charges, although sales of 3.61 billion euro were above local analyst estimates in Europe after North American sales were stronger than expected.

Michel Combes has outlined his “Shift” plan to return to profitability. We now know that it will be effected by close to 1 billion euro in operating expense cuts, but the company will also be selling another 1 billion or so in euro in assets over the next two years ahead.

Qualcomm’s plan with Alcatel-Lucent is to develop 3G/4G base stations to boost wireless connectivity in residential and enterprise environments. Both companies will jointly invest in a strategic R&D program. This field is not without competition, but bringing in Qualcomm is certainly a boost on the headline front.

What really stands out is that Alcatel-Lucent’s US ADRs are up 9.5% at $2.41 and the shares hit a new 52-week high of $2.46 in New York trading on Tuesday. Alcatel-Lucent shares closed up over 14% at 1.826 euro in Paris trading and a 52-week high of 1.85 euro was also put in on Tuesday.

Shares in New York are back up to where they were March of 2012, but we would still be quick to point out that these ADRs were above $6 per share as recently as May of 2011 and were above $10 in 2007 before the recession wiped out just about every stock.