Dan Collins, Corning's vice president of communications, said that the company has had internal discussions on the possibility of buying Lucent's fiber business unit.
"We have talks about that stuff and other opportunities all the time," said Collins, who added that everybody in the industry most likely considered buying the unit when Lucent put it up for sale last week.
Another acquisition would maintain the brisk pace of Corning's recent shopping spree over the past few months. Corning, a maker of glass fiber for communications networks, announced in September that it would buy Pirelli's optical components and devices business for US$3.6 billion in cash. The company also announced two smaller acquisitions since September currently worth about US$105 million total.
"It's a business that Lucent should dispose of because it doesn't have the same (high) growth rate of their optical network business," ABN AMRO analyst Ken Leon said.
Leon says the fiber-optics unit, which makes cable for optical networks, generates about US$1.5 billion in revenue per year and could be sold for between US$4 billion and US$6 billion. Corning made US$7.27 billion last year. The combination of the two companies could be blocked by government antitrust watchers, which poses a barrier to a sale.
Collins would not comment on whether Corning has or will have talks with Lucent, but the company is preparing itself for possible acquisitions.
Last week, the company filed a shelf registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to raise US$5 billion in securities.
Collins downplayed the significance of the filing and said that the filing only gives the company the option to raise the funds and that Corning has made "several" filings over the past two years.
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