Alcatel to Sell Locatel

PARIS -- Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) presented today to the worker council of its Locatel subsidiary, a project to sell the company to Perfect Technologies and to its main shareholders, Verdoso Investment SA and DL Finance & Partners. "This acquisition project is part of Perfect Technologies' strategy to obtain the critical size necessary to its development," said Alain Clement, President of the Board of Directors of Perfect Technologies. "By tripling its size, our group will develop the necessary industrial dimension to adapt to market rationalization. With sales of 80 million euros in 2003, Perfect Technologies is the French audiovisual market leader in technical services and professional video equipment as well as in the hotels and health sector. "We are proud of the collaboration with Perfect Technologies," added Jean Quintard, Deputy President of Locatel. "This contributes to deploy a strong national network in the professional audiovisual and events domains, which is what the market needs. Today, existing players don't have the critical size to provide customized services and high levels of technical competency." He added: "In hotels and health activities, Locatel is the leader in France for the interactive audiovisual systems and is one of five major players in Europe." The transaction amount is not disclosed. Alcatel SA