Finnish vendor Nokia has divested further non-core assets, selling software group Qt and 500 technology patents in separate transactions.
Nokia plans to sell Qt, which fell out of favour last year when the group adopted Microsoft’s software for…
Finnish vendor Nokia has divested further non-core assets, selling software group Qt and 500 technology patents in separate transactions.
Nokia plans to sell Qt, which fell out of favour last year when the group adopted Microsoft’s software for smartphones, to Finnish technology firm Digia for €4m (US$4.9m), according to a stock exchange announcement. This is far less than the US$150m that Nokia paid for it back in 2008.
As part of this transaction, a maximum of 125 Qt employees at Nokia will transfer to Digia. According to the two companies, Qt has so far been used by more than 450,000 developers and thousands of companies worldwide.
In a separate deal, Nokia sold 500 patents to US technology group Vringo for at least US$22m in cash. The portfolio of patents, of which 109 were issued in the US, covers a range of technologies relating to cellular infrastructure, from communication management to data and signal transmission. If these patents boost Vringo’s revenue by more than US$22m, Nokia will receive 35% of the excess in royalties.
To fund the acquisition, Vringo has agreed plans with several investors to offer and sell 9,600,000 shares of common stock. This offering will be priced at US$3.25 per share, and the company expects to raise a total US$30.5m through the issue. Of this, US$22m will go towards the Nokia deal, US$3.2m will repay outstanding debt to Hudson Bay Master Fund, and the rest will be used for general corporate purposes.
Nokia has been busy stripping itself of non-core assets this year as part of its turnaround strategy. In June the vendor sold Vertu, the luxury handset brand, to private equity firm EQT Partners in a deal thought to be worth around €200m (US$245m).
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