Strategy is all Greek to Alcatel's new chairman

By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) - Alcatel-Lucent's laid-back but mathematically brilliant new chairman Philippe Camus has an unusual method of weighing up industrial strategy -- by indulging a life-long fascination with mind-bending equations.

The shy former physicist with a gift for music and finance crashes cymbals as a spare-time jazz drummer and carries a briefcase full of Greek symbols that helped him redraw Europe's defence industry as a founder of aerospace group EAdefenseDS (EAD.PA).

By becoming non-executive chairman of Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA), a French-U.S. telecoms equipment maker, three years after losing a power battle at EADS, Camus finds himself on both sides of a larger equation, straddling competing clans in the French defense industry.

Analysts agreed he would leave the job of turning round Alcatel Lucent to former British Telecom (BT.L) chief Ben Verwaayen, whose hiring as CEO was also announced on Monday.

But the choice of Camus as chairman prompted speculation he would use his skills as negotiator and free-thinker to drive through a further shake-up of a still-fragmented defense sector, under the watchful eye of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Camus told Le Monde newspaper that President Nicolas Sarkozy's office had been informed about the recruitment process, and an industry watcher who asked not to be named said Camus and Sarkozy's chief of staff Claude Gueant had been in discreet talks "for months".

One of Camus' first tasks will be to decide what, if anything, Alcatel should do with its 21 percent stake in French defense company Thales (TCFP.PA), worth 1.5 billion euros.

Camus made his mark as an aide to Jean-Luc Lagadere, who wrestled and lost against Alcatel for a piece of Thales, once known as Thomson-CSF, when it was privatized 10 years ago.

Instead, the French missile maker deftly took control of Aerospatiale from the state then went on to forge an alliance with Germany's Daimler to create EADS, the parent of Airbus.

"It's rather ironic. He is succeeding Serge Tchuruk, with whom he had a few run-ins while at Matra," a source close to him said, referring to the former Lagardere missiles business.

Once EADS had been formed from a Franco-German alliance in 2000, it too tried to buy Thales in 2004, but was rebuffed.

A key architect of that second assault on Thales was Philippe Camus, who remains a senior partner at Lagardere.

Camus "knows the Thales network by heart", an aide said.

Even now, EADS is seen, despite denials, as a potential buyer for the Thales stake if Alcatel needs to raise cash. But Camus' arrival at Alcatel may bring in wider ideas, with EADS in any case struggling with its own industrial and financial problems.

"I am assuming he must have a strategic mandate for some of the alliances which might be made," said Leslie Varenne, author of a recent book called the "Secret History of EADS".