The deal clears a big obstacle in the way of its proposed merger of its $34bn merger with Lucent Technologies Inc because it will separate secret French defense operations from the combined company. Under the proposed deal, Thales will pay 673m euros ($825.8m) and issue shares worth 969.7m euros ($1.2bn).
A deal has now to be worked out to put the defense work conducted by Bell Labs for the US government into a separate company run by directors approved by the US government.
