Telecommunications equipment giant Alcatel-Lucent, of Paris, had been in talks for months with possible buyers of its 21 percent stake in Thales Group, the French defense electronics company. On December 20 it finally landed a deal. Alcatel-Lucent announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to sell the stake to France’s Dassault Aviation.

Thanks to a just-in-time-for-Christmas 25 percent premium to the market value of the Thales holding, the $2.23 billion deal gives Alcatel-Lucent a much-needed opportunity to clean up its balance sheet, which has been weakened by years of corporate losses. Proceeds from the sale, expected to close in 2009, will erase Alcatel-Lucent’s net debt position of $858 million as of the third quarter of 2008. In November 2007 aerospace group European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co....