Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) is currently in talks with EQT in hopes of selling their subsidiary Vertu for about 200 million Euros ($249 million in U.S. currency), reports Reuters. The source of this report came from has yet to be named.
Vertu is the name behind many expensive smartphones, some of which features crystal displays or sapphire keys. Their phones cost a fortune at 200,000 pounds ($310,900 in our currency). That’s quite an impressive price for any phone especially if they’re not the most innovative in design and features.
One private equity group, Permiera, considered buying out Vertu but eventually went against it. Nokia is a poor performing cell phone maker and they’re quickly trying to sell all or most of their lesser important assets.
According to FT.com, EQT purchased another company earlier this week. They acquired BSN Medical(a German company that specializes in manufacturing medical equipment) from Montagu Private Equity. If EQT decides to purchase Vertu this week, it will be their second acquisition in the same week. At press time, neither EQT and Nokia have made a public announcement regarding their decisions.
Whether Nokia can sell Vertu or not will depend on a few things like the current financial condition of the company in question, if the asking price is the right amount, and if the company that’s up for grabs really has much of a foreseeable future. No company wants to buy up another company only to find out that they cannot do much with the company they just bought up. I’m hoping that even if EQT decides against purchasing Vertu, another company will come into the picture and purchase the smaller company from Nokia. The bottom line is that Nokia needs to focus more on the bigger picture and in order to do that they’re going to need to sell Vertu for a higher price(if they can) or find other small subsidiaries that they can sell.
