Nokia Gains gets control of Alcatel-Lucent
Nokia gained the complete control of its French counterpart Alcatel-Lucent following its 15.6-billion ($17 billion) all-share offer. The two telecom equipment producers are expected to kick start their operations next week. The French stock market authority announced interim results from the offer highlighting that Nokia would hold around 79% of Alcatel shares. Nokia's stocks experienced a slight surge with the announcement of the deal.
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications and information technology company, which was founded in 1865. The Finnish company, which had been a leader in the field for more than a decade, peaked with a 40-percent global market share in 2008. After 2011, Nokia began streamlining its business after consumers failed to warm up to its first Nokia Windows Phone.
Nokia originally started off as a paper production company in 1865 in Finland.
Nokia finished its buyout of Nokia Siemens Networks and renamed the company Nokia Solutions and Networks. In July 2013, Nokia had bought back Siemens' share of the company for $2.2 billion, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. Nokia shares rose as much as 29 cents, closing 3.7% higher at 2.95 euros in Helsinki, giving the company a valuation at 11 billion euros.
Nokia completed its $7.5bn sale of its distressed mobile phone and services division to US-based Microsoft. Nokia will now focus on "networks, mapping services and technology development and license". With this deal, Microsoft stands to acquire about 25,000 Nokia employees in 50 countries, including 4,700 in Finland. Nokia's failure to compete with mobile giants like Apple and Samsung forced it to sell to Microsoft.
Finland's Nokia said that it would close the transaction of its navigation business 'Here' to German car makers by 4 December. In the deal announced in August, BMW, Audi and Mercedes will pay around 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) to purchase Here which will give them an alternative to Google and Apple's mapping services. This reduces Nokia to Nokia Networks and Nokia Technologies.
The Nokia- Alcatel deal is set to become the biggest transaction in Finland's corporate history.
The Alcatel acquisition will further Nokia's substantial position to battle with Sweden's Ericsson and China's Huawei. In addition, the deal will help Nokia grow its product portfolio in the areas of optical transmission and Internet Protocol The deal also puts Nokia actively in the global service provider router market, as "Alcatel-Lucent holds the second highest market share after Cisco".
