Reuters

Paris — French defence group Thales was plunged back into speculation about its future, dampening its shares, as newspaper comments yesterday forced investors to rethink whether or not Alcatel had lost interest in a deal.

Thales shares rose more than 4% on Friday when news surfaced of talks between telecoms equipment suppliers Alcatel of France and Lucent of the US — widely seen as potentially lethal distractions to Alcatel’s talks with Thales. But yesterday Thales’ share price shares eased 1,1% to €36,6.

The counter has underperformed French blue chips 12,9% this year.

With a stake of 9,6%, Alcatel is Thales’s second-largest shareholder after the French government.

Analysts have been mainly lukewarm towards its proposal to swap space industry assets for a larger 25% Thales stake, preferring the rival attentions of EADS.

Doubts about whether or not the French government would tolerate indirect links between Lucent, which has some US defence activities, and Thales had seemed to clear up uncertainty about Thales’ future, and even point towards an Alcatel retreat.

But Alcatel’s space-industry partner, Italy’s Finmeccanica, yesterday seemed to confirm that Alcatel was still considering a share-for-asset-swap with Thales, and said it would like a slice of Europe’s top arms electronics firm for itself.

“I have no objections in principle,” Finmeccanica CE Pier Francesco Guarguaglini told Les Echos newspaper in an interview.

“As this (Alcatel-Thales) project concerns our space activities, Alcatel would have to ask for our consent, but up to now we have not been involved in any discussions,” he said.

“The moment everything is ready, we will take a position,” Guarguaglini said.

With acknowledgement to Tim Hepher, Marcel Michelson and Business Day.