They had already booked the St Regis Hotel in New York for a grand reception and press conference on May 30th. But Alcatel and Lucent called off their proposed merger at the last minute on the preceding day. Lucent's chairman and chief executive, Henry Schacht, walked out of talks in Paris when he realised that Serge Tchuruk, his counterpart at Alcatel, was not proposing a merger of equals but a French takeover of the ailing American telecoms-equipment group that was spun out of at&t five years ago. More than a month of negotiations had resolved almost every detail but this, the most crucial of all.
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