imagePARIS: French telecoms equipment firm Alcatel-Lucent posted major third-quarter losses Thursday, but its stock price rose thanks to its imminent tie-up with Nokia.

Alcatel-Lucent saw losses of 206 million euros ($225.8 million) in the third quarter, compared with 18 million euros during the same period in 2014. It has only had one year of profit since the company was created in 2006.

But it still saw its stock surge on Thursday, rising nine percent by 0945 GMT to 3.60 euros.

The rise was thanks to strong results from its partner-to-be Nokia, which said in mid-April that it had struck a 15.6 billion euro ($17.6 billion) deal to buy its troubled French rival.

Finnish-based Nokia announced stronger-than-expected results for the third quarter on Thursday, and said it would return 4.0 billion euros ($4.4 billion) to shareholders through share buy-backs and dividend payments.

"Alcatel's fate will be tied to that of Nokia," said Xavier de Villepion, a broker with HPC.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2015

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