A Sad Day for Nortel Employees and Canada

Nortel employees have generally been overpaid prima-donna, all the way from the top to bottom. They were able to continue to pull in way-above-market salaries due to the excessively liberal lending/debt policies permitted to corporations. Nortel hasn't been viable since Roth blew his brains out buying Bay Networks to enable "webtone", and Nortel employees sense of entitlement has been pervasive.

As Nortel firees hit the streets, they will understand the realities of real salaries and real job requirements - something they have been insulated from for their entire careers.

Zman kept sending Zmail till the company hit Zbottom. he is Znuts

I promised myself not to write on this blog after all the trolls started appearing. But like many others, I was saying this would happen. I can only wish present employees (except non senior management and executives) the best.

Some of these jerks in management laughed and mocked when people like me left thinking we were mad to even imagine NT going bankrupt given its state of affairs and how things needed to be changed. We were nuts to even think so. How I'd like to bump into some of them in a hallway right now. It would be a feeling that is priceless.

In a funny final ode, at last an end after a skid ride after that right angle turn.

Roth pronounced as Wrath took Nortel on a crazy warpath
Dunn made the company Done with
Owens killed it with debt Owing billions
Zman pretty much put it to Zzzzzz

exnt2,

I've always appreciated your comments and discourse. I understand what you mean though, it is tiring being constantly attacked by the delusional and others who cannot handle the truth. Quite sad actually, that these same people continue *to this day* to spout the same rhetoric over and over again, as if it can somehow trump the truth.

But as I have said, the truth will always come out. Peace.

Nortel Honey (I guess you are NA based, as there are very few honey's in NN UK!!). ANyway, I digress. Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with your comments, especially regarding the employees feeling as if they have been shat on, I totally disagree that Nortel should become an enterprise only player - they would get destroyed by Cisco / Extreme etc, as Nortel just doesn't have the cost base to be able to effectively compete in low margin, high volume business.

Nortel differentiates with MEN and some of the convergence applications with Microsoft, but if they were to go head to head with the established enbterpise players, they need to retain these differentiators to take the game away from Nortel's weak point - price & margin sensitivity.

How does the following affect shareholders? Do I lose my stock in the company as it goes through and potentially comes out of bankruptcy protection? Or do restrictions only affect those that own 4.75%+ of the company... what happens to shareholders moving forward?

In addition, the Company will request the courts to impose certain restrictions on trading in the Company's common shares and Nortel Networks Limited's preferred shares in order to preserve valuable tax assets in the United States. Trading restrictions, if imposed, would apply immediately to investors beneficially owning at least 4.75% of (i) the outstanding common shares of Nortel Networks Corporation..

Stock will be worth zero eventually. There may be some late trading as people close out their option positions but in a bankruptcy, stockholders almost always get nothing. When Air Canada went bankrupt my shares went to zero.

I understand that the stock will be worth next to nothing for now. But if they come out of bankruptcy ... then it'll be worth something again, no?

sorry.. repeat post.

If it goes public again, the stock will have value, but current shares are worth $0 once the final trading is done.

A short summary of what happened to Nortel:

Great and dedicated employees, plus
No vision, plus
No strategy, plus
Extreme executive arrogance, plus
Money-grabbing management, plus
80’s style superficial lingo and PR, plus
ZZZZero Leadership, equals:
Disaster!!!!!
Nortel will be a business schools’ case study of what not to do.

With deep sadness…--bb

Indeed.

It is sad to say, but Nortel will become a textbook case study of how not to run a business. And Mike Z's tenure will occupy the last chapters, his numerous failings exposed for all to see.

9 years of total leadership failure

"What was once a shining star within the telecom world has crumbled amid bad strategic decisions, extreme competition, a bleak economy and changes within the industry that Nortel failed to capitalize on."

I mostly agree with this, but I think the primary culprit(s) are the bad strategic decisions and the failure to capitalize on industry changes, both of which are in my book very much related and in many cases one and the same. In the same way that a virus will capitalize on a compromised host, Nortel's ultimate demise will be from being unable to compete with the more successful players in the industry, especially in this bleak economy.

Very few people I know who are still at Nortel were ever emboldened by anything that came out of Zafirovski's office or his executive committee. Kool-aid drinkers, yes. Rationale, intelligent people who were directly responsible for building and delivering product, no. The corporate BS that spewed from the upper echelon's of Nortel's senior executive staff fell on mostly deaf ears.

It's truly a difficult and trying time to be a Nortel employee, especially those who unfortunately bought into the notion that they would have a layoff package when their time came. Now, they will get little to nothing, and their difficulties will extend to finding meaningful employment in this time of bleak, economic uncertainty.

Mark, appreciate the kind words about the rank & file employees. While there may not be as many of us left in Canada we seem to get overlooked while the Nortel bashing occurs. We are hard working Canadians, pay our taxes and are likely neighbors to many. I think what is more disheartening then the CEOs is having people on the sidelines cheering as Nortel shrinks.

As a long time Nortel employee, who has considered leaving but felt the company had the opportunity to become a world leader again. With the lack of direct leadership from Mike and team, this confidence has gone to zero. Mike and his Jack Welsh flunkies have taken a company, that needed the type of leadership required of a world class company to a bankruptcy filing. This is a bitter pill to swallow, those of us in the trenches have watched the leadership /fat boys/clown boys make dumb, non strategic decisions, hire their cronies while the board did nothing. Many employees feel cheated and shat upon by these leaders and their *vision* of greatness.

Before you bash Nortel, remember those of us who put in 100% effort and passion in their work, we stand united and strong for a positive Nortel, one with a fat cash balance, satisfied customers etc. we need LEADERSHIP!!! even now, i have zero faith that these jokers can manage a sale...please.. please..the call is out for a governing body who will actually do right by the company, its reputation and employees to sell the business units and to i hope re-org into a smaller Enterprise company. Without Z and the boys.

Roth, Dunn, Owens inflicted a lot of damage on Nortel in terms of poor acquisitions, poor investments, accounting scandals, customer relations, and general inaction on problems. The company was in bad shape when Mike Z got it. However, he was hired and paid handsomely to be the saviour. He ran the company as if it was on a sound footing and just needed to execute better, in spite of being told repeatedly about the strategic issues and needed fixes. He relied heavily on his own knowledge and those of the yes-men he hired or promoted, and they all agreed with him that it was an execution problem, not a strategic-product problem. This was his major mistake.