Boston, MA 10/22/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Buoyed by record cash from the sale of its handset unit to Microsoft, Nokia is looking for a soft landing and this could be Alcatel Lucent SA (ADR) (NYSE:ALU)’s wireless equipment unit.
Nokia is expected to bag roughly $ 7.44 billion from the sale of its handset business unit to Microsoft. Out of this deal, the Finnish company is set to increase its cash to nearly $ 19.14 billion. This is definitely Nokia’s record cash. And now with this financial muscle, and with ALU selling assets to remake itself, Nokia is seeking to buy the French company’s mobile network business unit for nearly $2.7 billion.
The Nokia-ALU deal is an interesting one; that while one is emerging from a business unit sale with billions of dollars, the other is in a dire situation to the point of putting up its assets for buyout in attempts to regain ground. But the current situation of ALU is not very unique, even Nokia that is now seeking its mobile equipment network business faced dire financial pressure, forcing it to cut jobs and enter extreme cost reduction measures. It thus means that ALU has a lot of lessons to learn from Nokia; only that for now, it can only gain from the Finnish company through unit takeover deal, something that is already on the cards.
The interest of Nokia in ALU’s mobile network business can be seen in the Finnish company’s desire to position itself against rival Ericsson. This takeover will also leverage Nokia’s standing in the U.S. market where it’s not doing well already.
Following the acquisition of Siemens AG, Nokia has had a boost of nearly $17.78 billion annually from the segment. Takeover of ALU’s wireless unit will rake in another $4.65 billion annually for Nokia. This is besides the software and services segment.
In the previous trading session, ALU maintained its downward side, shedding 1.37% of its share value to close $3.60 Monday, October 21.
