Alcatel-Lucent is bracing itself for a stormy annual meeting at the end of this month. But the beleaguered Franco-American telecommunications equipment and network group seems to be taking pre-emptive action to avoid the meeting degenerating into an unseemly shouting match.

Shareholders are furious at the way the company has managed to lose €20bn ($31bn) off its value in the two years since it was formed by the merger of the French Alcatel and the US's Lucent. Multiple profit warnings have been putting intense pressure on Serge Tchuruk, the group's veteran French chairman, and Pat Russo, its US chief executive. The rationale of the original merger has increasingly been questioned and the fate of the Tchuruk-Russo duo has been looking pretty uncertain.