Alcatel-Lucent SA, one of the world's biggest industry players in telecommunications, announced that CEO Patricia Russo and Chairman Serge Tchuruk will quit their jobs due to the fact that the company reported 6 quarterly losses in a row.  

The move made the company’s shares rise 5.5 percent in Paris trading. Alcatel-Lucent fell 62 percent since the French-U.S. merger that created the company two years ago. Alcatel-Lucent, one of the world’s largest suppliers of telecommunications equipment, said in a statement that its net loss reached 1.1 billion euro ($1.7 billion), or 49 cents per share, from 586 million euro, or 26 cents, a year earlier.

The two executives who decided to leave the company were the ones who led Alcatel SA to acquire Lucent Technologies Inc. in November 2006. Unfortunately, the company they created never earned profit, shed 62% of its market value and now plans to eliminate 16,500 jobs.

The firm’s future ex-Chief Executive Officer, said that he expects Alcatel-Lucent’s losses to end. Russo, 56, will leave the company by the end of the year, while Tchuruk, 70, will leave Oct 1. According to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, the forecast for the company is that it will record a net loss of 135 million euro.

“The merger phase is now behind us…It is now time that the company acquires a personality of its own, independent from its two predecessors. The board must also evolve and the chairman should give the first example, which I have decided to do,” Tchuruk said.

In its statement, the company said that the new management changes will include a reduction in the size of its board and Henry B. Schacht, a former exec of Lucent Technologies, would also leave the firm.