Lucent's planned deal with Flextronics scuttled

According to the newspaper, the issues of contention between Flextronics and Lucent included the purchase of existing inventories and the ownership of the physical buildings.

A Flextronics spokesperson declined to comment, the paper said.

As reported earlier, Lucent--which reported a loss of about US$3.7 billion for its second quarter--is in the middle of a restructuring plan in which 2,000 employees have been let go thus far, with 10,000 layoffs expected by July. It also recently terminated merger talks with France's Alcatel.

The sale to Flextronics was expected to raise between US$600 million and US$900 million for the telecommunications equipment maker. As of last week, Lucent said it was still expecting to sell the factories by the end of the fiscal year, and noted that it might even sell or close other plants.

Although that deal is now scuttled, Lucent has reopened bidding for the Oklahoma City and Columbus, Ohio plants to other contract manufacturers, it added.

Lucent's credit ratings were put under review in March by Standard & Poor's Corp for a possible cut to junk status after the initial public stock sale of its Agere unit raised less than planned.