Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) has used its conversion rights to turn its €750 million convertible bonds, which are due in 2017, into shares of its stock. The Finnish handset maker issued those bonds in October, saying it intended to use the net proceeds of the bond offering to manage its capital structure and manage debt maturities that are coming up next year.
A press release from the company indicates that the conversion price is €2.6116 per share, and the company recorded 38,290 new shares of its stock. That amounts to a conversion of €100,000 into the fund as invested non-restricted equity. As a result, the company’s share capital is not increased by the conversion.
The new shares will be traded on the NASDAQOMX Helsinki Oy exchange, jointly with other shares of the company’s stock as of March 18. Those shares take all shareholder rights starting today, which is the registration date of the new shares.
Investors are rewarding Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) at the New York Stock Exchange. Trading there is up 2 percent as of Friday morning.
Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) also announced software updates for its three Windows 8 handsets, so users of the Lumia 920, 820 and 620 will receive the updates soon. The updates are designed to improve the overall performance of the handsets rather than adding any new features. However the handset maker did say that the Lumia 620 “has some new software in the pipeline.”
The improvements in this round of updates will include improvements to stability, automatic adjustment for brightness, better touch behavior and camera improvements. All new Lumia handsets will ship with these improvements already on them.
