European vendor Nokia Siemens Networks is attempting to renegotiate its agreement to acquire Motorola’s networks business in order to get Chinese regulatory approval, according to a Bloomberg report today.
Citing a source close to the process, Bloomberg…
European vendor Nokia Siemens Networks is attempting to renegotiate its agreement to acquire Motorola’s networks business in order to get Chinese regulatory approval, according to a Bloomberg report today.
Citing a source close to the process, Bloomberg reported that NSN wants to exclude the GSM unit from the deal and renegotiate the price of the deal accordingly.
NSN said it would not comment on rumours and speculation. Motorola Solutions, the part of the demerged Motorola business that covers business communications, also would not comment.
Motorola demerged in January, with the business and government communications side of the business becoming Motorola Solutions.
NSN announced on 9 March that the deal would not be closed in Q1 2011 as it had previously targeted because it was still waiting for anti-trust approval from the Chinese authorities.
The deal has been approved by other major regulators, including the EU and US.
NSN said it could not give information on financial advisers, but Skadden was its legal adviser in the US.
The Chinese vendor Huawei, which had worked with Motorola in the past, recently won an injunction in a US court that stopped Motorola from providing any of its confidential information to NSN.
This injunction did not prevent the deal from going ahead.
NSN originally announced the deal in July 2010.
At the time, it said that it would acquire the majority of Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure for US$1.2bn.
It said that it was aiming to gain 50 operators as a result of the transaction, and develop its global presence, especially in Japan and the US.
The GSM unit was part of the networks business that NSN was planning to acquire. According to NSN, Motorola had a “robust GSM installed base”, with 80 networks in 66 countries.
The networks business also provided products and services for a wide range of other technologies, including CDMA, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE.
It would make NSN the second biggest player in the global infrastructure segment.
The companies originally expected the deal to be completed before the end of 2010.
