By Ron Coates, 13 June 2001 11:59
NEWS Ailing telecoms equipment maker Lucent has received a body blow from Standard & Poor, which has dropped the company's credit rating to BBB-. The ratings downgrade means Lucent will immediately have to start paying more interest on the $6.5bn it raised from its creditors in short-term credit lines - even though rival credit agency Moody's still rates it as investment grade. Lucent needs to find $2bn in cash by the end of September to make its spin-off of Agere, its chip-making operation, a success. The news takes the gloss off the announcement of a $300m two-year deal with IBM Global Services. The deal with IBM will see IBM network services technology bundled with Lucent products, to be marketed by IBM. Big Blue has been doing very well in network services of late and signed a similar deal with Nortel for optical networks early this month.
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