European vendor Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has yet to appoint an adviser for any potential stake sale, a spokesman has told TelecomFinance.
This comes after a statement yesterday by NSN CEO Rajeev Suri noting that his company had received unsolicited…
European vendor Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has yet to appoint an adviser for any potential stake sale, a spokesman has told TelecomFinance.
This comes after a statement yesterday by NSN CEO Rajeev Suri noting that his company had received unsolicited approaches from a “handful” of private equity firms interested in acquiring a stake. Suri credited this interest to the company’s recent strong performance.
“I take this unsolicited interest as a testament to the progress we are making,” he said.
The JV, a partnership between Germany’s Siemens and Finland’s Nokia, is due to end in 2013. Last month, NSN said it had agreed to buy most of rival US group Motorola’s network equipment business for US$1.2bn.
A spokesman for NSN declined to specify which private equity firms had expressed interest or how large any stake would be. He did emphasise that no matter what, Nokia and Siemens would continue to be major shareholders.
He added that although NSN would benefit from fresh funding, private equity money was not currently needed to “execute against its current strategy”, with the group already being “well positioned to make progress in the market”.
Last month, several US buyout groups, including TPG, Blackstone, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, were reported by the Financial Times to be interested in the venture.
NSN says it is benefiting from gains in key segments, leadership in LTE and other next generation technologies, and the equipment acquisition from Motorola.
According to Nokia’s non-IFRS Q2 results, which exclude costs resulting from NSN’s formation, NSN’s operating profit was E51m for the three months ended July 22, compared to E2m for the same period in 2009. It also recorded NSN having Q2 net sales of E3.039bn, compared to the E3.199bn net sales posted for the corresponding period last year.
Nokia and Siemens declined to offer more details about the recent development.
