French telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent says its chairman and chief executive officer will both resign later this year.

Chairman Serge Tchuruk and Chief Executive Pat Russo’s departures come as the world’s largest fixed and mobile telecom gear maker reported its sixth consecutive quarter of losses on Tuesday.

Alcatel-Lucent says Tchuruk will step down Oct. 1, and Russo will resign “no later than the end of the year.” The company says it will immediately begin the search for replacements for both.

Alcatel-Lucent reported a net loss of $1.73 billion for the second quarter after taking a $1.3 billion goodwill writedown.

The company, which was formed through the 2006 merger of France’s Alcatel and the U.S.-based Lucent, is in the middle of a painful restructuring that foresees 16,500 job cuts.

In its statement, the company quoted Tchuruk, Alcatel’s longtime chairman and CEO before the merger saw him take on the non-executive chairman role, as saying the resignations were aimed at giving Alcatel-Lucent “a personality of its own, independent from its two predecessors.”

Russo was quoted as saying that although she was “pleased” with the company’s progress, “the company will benefit from new leadership ... to bring a fresh and independent perspective.”

When conceived, the Alcatel-Lucent merger was designed to boost margins through cost and research and development savings, while improving the joint company’s pricing power with telecom operators, its largest customers. But intense competition in the industry means many of the savings have been used on discounts passed on to customers.