Description: Lucent Technologies stock certificate Dated 2001 Two great Photophone vignettes: Alexander Graham Bell uses light Photophone receiver"Accounting irregularities" Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business unit of AT&T Corporation, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs. One of the primary reasons AT&T Corporation chose to spin off its equipment manufacturing business was to permit it to profit from sales to competing telecommunications providers; these customers had previously shown reluctance to purchase from a direct competitor. Bell Labs brought prestige to the new company, as well as the revenue from thousands of patents. At the time of its spinoff, Lucent was placed under the leadership of Henry Schacht, who was brought in to oversee its transition from an arm of AT&T into an independent corporation. Richard McGinn, who was serving as president and COO, succeeded Schacht as CEO in 1997 while Schacht remained chairman of the board. Lucent became a "darling" stock of the investment community in the late 1990s, and its split-adjusted spinoff price of $7.56/share rose to a high of $84. Its market capitalization reached a high of $258 billion, and it was at the time the most widely held company with 5.3 million shareholders.[13] In 1995, Carly Fiorina led corporate operations.[14] In that capacity, she reported to Lucent chief executive Henry B. Schacht.[15] She played a key role in planning and implementing the 1996 initial public offering of a successful stock and company launch strategy.[16][17][18] Under her guidance, the spin-off raised US$3 billion.[14][19] Later in 1996, Fiorina was appointed president of Lucent's consumer products sector, reporting to president and chief operating officer Rich McGinn.[17] In 1997, she was named group president for Lucent's US$19 billion global service-provider business, overseeing marketing and sales for the company's largest customer segment.[16][20] That year, Fiorina chaired a US$2.5 billion joint venture between Lucent's consumer communications and Royal Philips Electronics, under the name Philips Consumer Communications (PCC).[21][22] The focus of the venture was to bring both companies to the top three in technology, distribution, and brand recognition.[23] Ultimately, the project struggled, and dissolved a year later after it garnered only 2% market share in mobile phones. Losses were at $500 million on sales of $2.5 billion.[23] As a result of the failed joint venture, Philips announced the closure of one-quarter of the company's 230 factories worldwide,[24] and Lucent closed down its wireless handset portion of the venture.[21] Analysts suggested that the joint venture's failure was due to a combination of technology and management problems.[21] Upon the end of the joint venture, PCC sent 5,000 employees back to Philips, many of which were laid off, and 8,400 employees back to Lucent.[21] Under Fiorina, the company added 22,000 jobs and revenues seemed to grow from US$19 billion to US$38 billion.[25][14] However, the real cause of Lucent spurring sales under Fiorina was by lending money to their own customers. According to Fortune magazine, "In a neat bit of accounting magic, money from the loans began to appear on Lucent's income statement as new revenue while the dicey debt got stashed on its balance sheet as an allegedly solid asset".[25] Lucent's stock price grew 10-fold.[25] In 1997, Lucent acquired Milpitas-based voicemail market leader[26] Octel Communications Corporation for $1.8 billion,[27][28] a move which immediately rendered the Business Systems Group profitable. The same year, Lucent acquired Livingston Enterprises Inc. for $650 million in stock. Livingston was known most for the creation of the RADIUS protocol and their PortMaster product that was used widely by dial-up internet service providers.[29][30][31] In 1999, Lucent acquired Ascend Communications, an Alameda, California–based manufacturer of communications equipment for US$20 billion.[32][33] Lucent held discussions to acquire Juniper Networks but decided instead to buy Nexabit Networks.[34][35] At the start of 2000, Lucent's "private bubble" burst, while competitors like Nortel Networks and Alcatel were still going strong; it would be many months before the rest of the telecom industry bubble collapsed. Previously Lucent had 14 straight quarters where it exceeded analysts' expectations, leading to high expectations for the 15th quarter, ending Dec. 31, 1999. On January 6, 2000, Lucent made the first of a string of announcements that it had missed its quarterly estimates, as CEO Rich McGinn grimly announced that Lucent had run into special problems during that quarter—including disruptions in its optical networking business—and reported flat revenues and a big drop in profits. That caused the stock to plunge by 28%, shaving $64 billion off of the company's market capitalization. When it was later revealed that it had used dubious accounting and sales practices to generate some of its earlier quarterly numbers, Lucent fell from grace. It was said that "Rich McGinn couldn't accept Lucent's fall from its early triumphs." He described himself once as imposing "audacious" goals on his managers, believing the stretch for performance would produce dream results. Source: Wikipedia
Price: 19.99 USD
Location: Concord, California
End Time: 2024-12-01T04:19:44.000Z
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