Lucent Strikes Deal To Buy Livingston

Lucent Technologies Inc. said it’s buying Livingston Enterprises Inc. for $650 million in stock, furthering its push into the fast-growing computer-networking industry.

Lucent will take an unspecified charge in its fiscal first quarter of 1998 as a result of the purchase.

The purchase of Livingston takes Lucent into one of the fastest-growing parts of the computer-networking business. Livingston makes remote-access concentrators, which are used by Internet service providers, or ISPs, to link telephone lines into the global computer network.

“This focuses Lucent on the heart of the Internet business,” said Lucent Broadband Networking Systems President Harry Bosco.

Pleasanton, Calif.-based Livingston is No. 3 in supplying concentrators to ISPs in unit terms, analysts said. It’s smaller in dollar terms because most of its sales are to smaller ISPs.