Alcatel-Lucent workers at several French sites took industrial action on the last day of June to demand answers from management about having entered talks to sell the group's enterprise division, reports Reuters. Although it has not gone public with news of any such talks, the company admitted that negotiations were underway after the CFDT union repeatedly questioned it due to ongoing speculation in the last few months, said a CFDT representative at Alcatel-Lucent Entreprise. The CFE-CGC union also backed the one-day strike. The enterprise division has 5,000 workers around the world, including 1,410 in France. Swiss bank UBS expects the division to make an around 6 percent margin on just over EUR 1 billion of revenues this year. Other Alcatel-Lucent units are not likely to have such a high margin, UBS told Reuters. As previously reported Siemens Enterprise Communication, a 51/49 joint venture between investment fund Gores Group and Siemens, is considered to be the best placed company to buy the enterprise branch of the Franco-American telecom equipment maker.
