The two private equity firms, which bested Nortel Networks in the bidding, will pay $17.50 a share.

Conner held executive positions at Nortel Networks from 1992 to 2001.

He began by luring optical engineering talent from competitors like Nortel Networks.

"Nortel Networks comes in and gives closure to those great ideas."

On June 6, for example, Nortel Networks sold 150 million shares to investors at $1.41 each.

He had previously been vice president for customer finance at Nortel Networks.

After integrating the company into Nortel Networks, most of the original team was laid off by August 2003.

After the market closed, Nortel Networks said it would post a loss of $3.6 billion for the third quarter because of a decrease in sales.

It was built on a division acquired from Nortel Networks in 1997, but industry sources said it had not grown as expected.

In terms of revenue growth, Nortel Networks' results were even stronger than Lucent's.