Two of Europe's top three remaining telecommunications equipment companies, Nokia Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, have revived talks on a possible merger, Germany's Manager Magazin reported on Thursday, citing company sources.
The two companies could agree to merge or strike up a close cooperation, the magazine said, adding that the contacts had resumed in the autumn.
A source close to Alcatel said, however, that he was not aware of any recent discussions regarding a potential merger. Shares in Alcatel, an often volatile stock, rose 8.7% following the report. Nokia was up 3.4%.
Both Alcatel and Nokia declined to comment on the report.
Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia have held on-again, off-again talks for years before Nokia sold its struggling handset business in April to Microsoft in a 5.6 billion euro ($7 billion) deal that left Nokia to concentrate on developing the networks business.