Nortel May Not Sell MEN

I told you just a few days ago that it looks dead or prolonged.

By no means am I a Bankruptcy Protection subject matter expert, but I would think that any major transaction would need court approvals to proceed. I thought I saw somewhere on the US based Chapter-11 proceedings with Nortel that a court motion was approved for transactions up to $10 Million. Will double back on that one.

It WAS an act of desperation and panic, which explains the depth of this impotent management team…–bb

yup, i think the same thing… none of this can happen without court and creditor approval

Where is the other shoe? …–bb

this is obvious. selling man for US$400 mn (huawei's offer) will not help Nortel's financial. the company can burn this amount of cash in one quarter.

only way out is being takenover by either another telecom company or the bank of melon. nortel needs to get rid of US$4 bn debt.

so how did they manage to sell the 3g business to Alcatel?

This is not new news Mike Z hinted at his GIS after the filing that they would be reassessing any asset sales IE: MEN.

The statement of “an act of desperation “sums it up well. Nortel Leadership has failed horribly and they are disparate. They have put a noose around Nortel neck and everyone is just waiting for them to fall off the chair while they do their silly dance and strangle the company with their incompetence.

I guess this is the one area Hackney has experience in.

More from Mohammed..

Nortel suspends plans to sell Metro Ethernet unit
Wed Feb 4, 2009 4:42pm EST
(In U.S. dollars unless noted)

TORONTO, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Ailing telecom equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp (NT.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)NT.N has suspended its plans to sell its Metro Ethernet Networks unit as it begins its restructuring under bankruptcy protection, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

“The previously announced potential MEN divestiture has been put on hold while the overall business plan is being developed,” Mohammed Nakhooda told Reuters.

Analysts had speculated the division, which includes Nortel's optical and carrier ethernet technology, could fetch as much as $1 billion. The business was put up for sale in September, but no bids have materialized to date. (Reporting by Wojtek Dabrowski; editing by Rob Wilson)

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idCA…

The real issue is Nortel was expecting more than they could get. Whichever GEniuses though they could sell anything in this market for anything more than 50-80% off inflated values is insane. Nortel (and the rest of the industry) will soon find that the market for many of their products isn't as big as it was in the last 15-20 years as the global recession and credit crisis deepens in 2009 and into 2010.

Typical Nortel under Z…The left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing…How come Z left it to the Mohamed “The Mouthpiece” to answer the press ?.

Isn't this not important enough anymore for him to announce it to all the MEN employees first ???..Where is Phillip Morin, MEN President ?. I guess the Hackman might have jumped the gun early in his interview and forced his boss's hand…

There are tons of people trying to get on the MEN boat after the announcment of the divestiture. Now that the anchor has dropped again, the undocking will start …here come the mad dash to the dryland before the axemen come onboard a-swinging !.

p*ss up and brewery springs to mind, lets be honest they have absolutely no idea what to do or how to do it. I have more faith in the administartors of the company than the BoD, and they know nothing about the telecoms industry, which is about 100% more than this shower we call execs!!

Let's look at this more closely.
They use the word “suspended”.
They won't use the word cancelled.
Suspended means it could be resurrected.
Typical Nortel Mister Dithers mentality.
They keep everyone in the dark and treat all current employees as if they were all working on a project or product that has ilfe in it or life left in it. As in revenue or potential revenue in the near future.
Just like them not telling people who they want to keep and their job is safe for now. They dither, dither, dither. Just like this announcement.
People their doing powerpoints, researching or reading up on a product that isn't even going to sell, let alone make it to market but they won't tell these people thanks but no thanks. Keep them all painted with the same brush.
So typical, naive, politically correct, non offending Canuckistanii.
They must have took lessons from Paul Martin.
Maybe Manley trained the BOD and mike how to execute the dither dance.
It is no wonder somebody has not F***ing lost it at that place.

Nortel is not selling. Hot off the presee –> http://uk.reuters.com/article/mnaNewsTechMediaT…

Of course it has to be suspended, they're in Bankruptcy Protection where the courts and creditors must approve transactions of this scale. I do find it comical how some bash Nortel regardless of what they do. Bashing occurred at the first mention of looking for a transaction and bashing continues now that it has been suspended. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the culture of this blog.

Maybe Nortel employees need to be cautious these days. Given the number of people that desperately want to see Nortel and their employees bite the dust, personal safety concerns are starting to increase.

At the end of the, all we can really do is await the release of the Plan or Reorganization to understand the next steps for Nortel. Anything but that is pure speculation.

YOU HAVE TO READ THIS

Tab 2- Affidavit of John Doolittle

page 45 and 46…. C$90 RESERVED FOR THE BoD AS COMPENSATION while the employees are left w/o severance packages

CHECK THE LAST SENTENCE AT THE END.

e. Directors' and Officers' Charge
161. The Directors have been actively involved in Nortel's informal restructuring efforts to
date. The Directors have been mindful of their duties with respect to the supervision and guidance of the Applicants in advance of these CCAA proceedings.
162. It is anticipated that the ongoing day-to-day management of the Norte1 Companies will continue to be carried-out by the Applicants' existing management team. In order to continue to carryon business during the CCAA proceedings the Applicants require the active and committed involvement of their senior officers.
163. The Applicants are seeking a CDN$90 million Directors & Officers' charge (the. “D&O Charge”), that would cover any director or officer liability for statutory obligations arising during the CCAA proceedings as well as the fees and expenses of their legal counsel.
164. NNC, in an effort to secure the on-going services of the individuals who serve as its directors and officers and as directors and officers of organizations in which NNC has an interest and who are personally exposed to corporate liabilities, has established a directors' and officers' trust (the “D&O Trust”) in the amount of CDN$11,941,440 million. The ,purposes of the D&O Trust are to provide financial support for the defence and payment of claims against such directors and officers in their capacity as such to the extent that insurance maintained by NNC does not do so and NNC is unable to do so and
for the maintenance of director and officer insurance.
165. Each non-employee director of NNC and NNL had the right to elect to receive all or a portion of compensation for services rendered as a member of the Boards of Directors of NNC and NNL, any committee thereof, and as Board or committee chair, in the form of share units, in cash or in a combination of share units and cash under the Directors' Deferred Share Compensation Plans (the “Directors' Compensation Plans”) of NNC and NNL. To the extent share units were elected, the Director would receive no current cash compensation, but would instead be credited with a number of share units equal to cash
compensation otherwise payable divided by the fair market value of a share on the date such cash would have otherwise been paid. Upon leaving the Boards of Directors, the Director would receive a number of shares equal to the number of shares units credited to the Director's account at that time. With some limited exceptions, all of the nonemployee Directors ofNNC and NNL had elected to receive their compensation in share units. Both for corporate governance reasons and pursuant to the terms of the Directors' Compensation Plan, elections for 2009 remain unchanged. As part of the relief sought,
the Applicants are seeking the entitlement to pay the Directors their compensation in cash on a current basis, notwithstanding any outstanding elections, during the period in which the Directors continue as directors in the CCAA proceedings. Each Director's cash compensation will also be reduced by U.S.$25,000 per year. Without this relief, the Directors would essentially be providing services going forward for no compensation. I believe that in the circumstances it is fair for the Directors to receive cash compensation
for their efforts during the restructuring since receipt of equity compensation is of
questionable value.

lol it appears that executives aren't sure what to do of MEN. May be they haven't found any buyers yet and that is why they are backing off. At this time, executives are so confused that they seriously do not know what should be the next steps. They still keep repeating their mistakes. Sometimes they want to focus on Enterprise and want Nortel to be slim. And now they want MEN to be part of strategic decision. Lameeeeee…..Huawei was interested in buying Nortel I guess but due to political reasons they din't pursue this deal. There was another Israel company ( I forgot the name) offered much less so they again could not go ahead with deal. I think its not a strategic decision but they are “forced” to make this decision of not selling MEN as “strategic”….. Good Luck

IMHO MEN was never “really” for sale, maybe for sale at a beyond market price, but was announced to calm the market when Nortel released poor numbers, obviously that didn't work. Would they have sold it for the rumored $3b offered by huawei if they could have? Wouldn't you!

The other show has dog crap on it. I'm saving it for Mike Z.

Yea yea yea. Blame it on the others. The assault on ethics, loss of morale in consequence of that, total lack of understanding of the telecom environment by the ex-GE, no technical strategy moving forward, silos all around and inflated egos did not harm the company at all. It's all the employees and bloggers fault.

GET REAL, DUDE!

I am genuinely amused to read the comments on here sometimes. The people on here are stating how completely self-evident it is that Nortel shouldn't be selling MEN whereas a month or two ago they were complaining that MEN wasn't being sold fast enough! Make up your mind people! It just goes to show that the majority of people on here are happy to criticize EVERY decision that Nortel makes at this point. I can appreciate well thought out, constructive criticism but criticism for its own sake just says more about the person making it than the object of the criticism.

This is totally untrue. The very reason MEN was put up for sale was that it is quite easy to sell it as an individual business. I can't think of one product that is not unique to that Line of Business.

BB – couldn't agree more. Last fall I had a customer seriously interested in purchasing some MEN products. Once announcement that MEN was for sale hit, customer decided not to take the risk of purchasing. In my 25yrs of selling, I'd never encountered a situation where a company pre-announced a division was for sale without providing any specifics. Most companies know such an action would scare off customers and inject fear,uncertainty and doubt in the sales cycle that is already overly competitive. But as Mr. Hackney said in NW article, ” Nortel's Customer's Need Us” so I can only surmise that was the mindset used to pre-announce MEN sale. If the Nortel strategy was to confuse customers, stop orders and confirm to the outside world that Nortel's Execs operate from a knee jerk, tactical position, then they get a Over Achieve performance rating.

These are EXCELLENT videos … as sad as the situation is, they convey what is likely going on in the back office. Keep it up!

This is – or used to be – called “sarcasm”.

So who shoud we aspire to emulate, Mike Z? He strings the same dozen or so buzzwords into the same chant over and over for the sake of painting rosy blue outlooks that have been consisently destructive.

“Just hold on one more week, folks. We're buying to sell to buy a sale and are staying put to move forward overseas.”

A mere month ago long-suffering Nortellians were wanting to see the company finally turn a profit again, so it seemed logical to them that Nortel doff any unprofitable businesses that were sucking their livelihood dry.

And sure enough, Mikeypoo himself suggested gettng rid of MEN. His books said it sucked, quite officially.

Now Nortel has instead decided to save money by doffing its employees and keeping the MEN nobody seemed to want all that much. That must mean its much better than the books disclosed. Its now obvious to Nortel that their books need to be fixed one more time, not MEN.

Whats the slogan, there – Gun's dont kill people, people do. Therefore human error is keeping MEN down, not MEN itself. Its perfect.