By Wall Street Journal

Alcatel-Lucent moved to consolidate power around a handful of top executives Monday, as part of its plan to cut costs and turn around the loss-making telecommunications-equipment maker.

The company said it would nearly halve the size of its top executive committee, and accelerate efforts to pare back unprofitable contracts, consolidate management and share back-office functions—part of measures announced in July to slash 5,000 jobs and cut €1.25 billion ($1.6 billion) in costs by the end of 2013.

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