BackAlcatel-Lucent upbeat on turnaround, shares leap
Alcatel-Lucent upbeat on turnaround, shares leap
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Paris: Telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent struck an upbeat tone for 2011, keeping an ambitious free cash flow target and reassuring investors on its profitability as it nears the end of its turnaround plan.
Its shares shot up more than 12% at market open, as investors hailed a forecast-beating fourth quarter and began to wonder if the long-troubled group had finally turned a corner.
Alcatel-Lucent, which competes with larger rivals Ericsson of Sweden and China’s Huawei, has struggled to restore profitability and generate cash since it was formed in a merger in 2006.
Chief executive Ben Verwaayen, a Dutchman who formerly led BT Group before taking over Alcatel-Lucent in September 2008, said the results showed that the group was on track to complete his promised three-year turnaround.
“We had the best profits this quarter since the merger and it’s a clear indication that we are on our way to becoming a normal company going into 2011", he said in a call with reporters on Thursday.
Alcatel-Lucent set an adjusted operating margin target of 5% of 2011 sales, the lower end of the 5 to 9% range that it has previously told investors it would hit in 2011.
Asked whether the 9% was now out of reach, Verwaayen said he did not exclude it.
“There is clear momentum in the market and for us as a company," said Verwaayen. “We feel confident that we will grow faster than our addressable market and aim at a significant increase in profitability."
Analysts predicted that there would be significant upgrades to consensus after Alcatel-Lucent’s results.
“We think the company now appears much more credible as a restructuring play, which should profit from market growth this year," wrote Thomas Langer of WestLB in a note.
Alcatel-Lucent said the global market for telecom gear would grow in the high end of the previously predicted 0 to 5% range this year.
Market research firms have forecast 1.6 to 2.5% growth in telecom operators capital spending this year, as a boom in smartphones and tablets overload networks with data.
North America boost
Alcatel-Lucent’s full-year revenues were up 5.5% to €15.996 billion ($21.90 billion), while its adjusted operating income was €288 million.
Analysts had expected 2010 revenues would be up 3.8% to €15.74 billion.
The group had an adjusted operating margin of 1.8% in 2010, the lower end of the 1 to 5% range that it had been aiming for.
The fourth quarter was particularly strong with a 22% increase in revenues, boosted by strong sales in North America. The group’s adjusted operating margin for the fourth quarter was 8.1% of sales.
Alcatel-Lucent earns about one third of its revenues in the region through big contracts with AT&T and Verizon.
US operators are investing heavily in fourth-generation wireless rollouts to cope with an explosion in data traffic.
But Alcatel-Lucent struggled to convert higher sales last year in to strong cash flows because of troublesome shortage of electronic components that forced it to stockpile parts.
As a result, it did not deliver on its pledge to break even on a free cash flow basis this year. Instead, it saw negative free cash flow of 818 million euros, according to chief financial officer Paul Tufano.
“We increased our inventory dramatically as we suffered from component shortages," he explained. “But we plan to keep reducing inventory this year, and still aim for positive free cash flow in 2011."
Signalling some improvement, free cash flow in the fourth quarter was positive €319 million.
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