Nortel Gets Slammed for Nokia Deal

By Mark Evans | Published: June 27, 2009

It’s fairly unanimous that Nokia Siemens got a great deal when it picked up Nortel’s CDMA business and LTE R&D unit for $650-million – especially given the CDMA business had a profit of $700-million last year (although that is expected to decline as the CDMA continues to go south).

Nortel entered into a “stalking horse” deal with Nokia Siemens, which means the door, in theory, is open for competitive bids – but only if it’s at least $5-million higher.

Creditors, however, who have an obvious vested interest in making sure Nortel gets as much as it can for its assets, filed an objection yesterday in a U.S. bankruptcy court. They claim the terms of the Nokia deal will “stifle, rather than encourage, active bidding”..

According to a Bloomberg story, if Nortel determines Nokia’s offer is not “materially different” from a rival’s offer, Nokia would automatically win the auction, even if the rival is willing to pay more, creditors claimed.

Technorati Tags:

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]
This entry was posted in M&A. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
← Older Comments
  • scalppeeler

    The only relief the judge will allow is what he releases in his pants.
    This is just another excuse to get more lawyers, and pay them more money. There's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow boys and girls. Just a cauldron of s**t.

  • scalppeeler

    You are right.
    These overpaid, undervalued, ego-centric turds who were hanging on just cause their manager liked them or liked to watch then kneel at their feet got the boot in the last big culling that started in the new year. Not all, but more than usual.
    Long way to go though at that place.
    Hopefully they'll keep it up and the new buyers will increase this necessary carnage. Hard to say though what will happen. If a useless manager or employee can swing the opinion of or make the hiring buyer think they actually offer something, they'll still be able to hang around the club No?

  • poisonedivy

    that was exactly what i was trying to say. there were 2 sr managers out of nowhere that came in for example. what do we need with so much additional overhead. the fear is there is some serious buddy network garbage going on and that these new people will be preserved through politics and manuevering and people that have stuck through all of this will now find themselves in the 20% that is let go. this 'trading up' mentality is sickening. our director(s) should have been 'traded up' a long time ago.

  • yes4aapl

    Is anything important for the discussions on AAN?
    For some unknown reason all the discussions are side tracked and pushed away into nothingness.
    Example
    Shareholders issue.
    Who would care about shareholders, right?
    Oh, maybe just other shareholders should care about shareholders?
    Next were pensioners.
    Who would talk about their Pension Deficit?
    There was no reliable info about the deficit in media.
    We were smart to figure out the deficit loong before analysts.
    Even today $3 bill we estimated was too much for the derail posters like ToungeInCheek.
    another
    Who would care about creditors and suppliers? They should know better who they give money to.
    Oh, yes… employees… they post 75% or more posts here.
    It was so cozy and nice until Nortel kicked their double face a$$es.

    Let's go back to the creditors and try to find out what's important in their objection to the deal?
    Why they say it's not fair game Nortel=Bod=Mike Z is playing with them?
    “MatlinPatterson is not prepared to give up on its investment in Nortel or in the potential in the company,”
    We don't need another derail of the discussion by that well known_exposed many times TiC!
    Who is he?
    Is he one of BoDirectors?
    It's not funny when millions of investors were fooled by him and his supporters.
    It's not funny when pensioners are worried about future.
    It's not funny when creditors are robbed.
    It's not funny for the public to watch that horror and there is no answer to any question of the type why, who, where, how…?
    Do we need TiC and the gag orders?
    How many times he said he will sue AAN and the posters who were critical in assessing public info?

  • The psychiatrist

    bb

    your right,at one time I was a staunch defender/supporter of Nortel's management or more specificly Mike and his lip service to shareholders.Needless to say that over the last year with seemingly one disappointment after another and what seems to me unfulfilled promises and commitments by him,I have obviously changed my tune about management.

    The insight gained from this blog also helped me to see the otherside of things,things that don't get mentioned in the paper or admitted by management at qtrly conference calls.

    With that being said,I can also assure you that I was never part of Nortel's PR scheme but just a shareholder that unfortunately afforded Z and his cronies too much credit,it was always my nature to give people the benefit of the doubt and it cost me dearly with Nortel.

    Ya you could say I finally saw the light,but it turned out to be a locamotive barreling down the tracks before I could make out what it was.

    Your comments to this blog have been appreciated by me,too bad this blog wasn't around in 2000 for viewers or shareholders who could have benefited from the insight contributed by those on the inside.As expected there will always be biased opinions from others but still enough info available to have made one think twice about the inner workings of Nortel's history of poor management.

  • LoyalLoser

    Amen! If it wasn't for the arrogance of other businesses in Nortel, they would get their heads out of their a**es and see that. But they are too busy pumping up their own importance!

  • LoyalLoser

    Because I am still somewhat p*ssed, here is more clarification:

    Amen! If it wasn't for the arrogance of other businesses in Nortel, they would have gotten their heads out of their a**es and they would have seen that. But they were too busy pumping up their own importance! On this blog, I have only heard how we should have gotten out of the Wireless business a long time ago. Maybe we should have! And then Nortel would have been disolved 8 years ago instead of 2009, since no OTHER LOB was making any money!

  • ChaiTea

    >>MatlinPatterson, a major bondholder and Nortel creditor, is one of the objectors to the sale of Nortel CDMA/LTE assets to NSN.

    In case you are wondering who is this firm, how do they usually operate and their past history, here is an interesting old article on MatlinPatterson. The Forbes article seesm to imply that MatlinPatterson are purely Vulture like investors in distressed assets, and thats their main game.

    http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0930/400337.html

  • CantBelieveMyEyes

    I believe Passport also had a hand in paying other groups salaries.

  • ChaiTea

    Nortel Wins Approval of Nokia-Led Auction of Unit … latest update from Bloomberg. This is significant since it removes the hurdles that the matlinpatterson and other creditor groups were trying to place.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarch…

  • broadbandbill

    Appreciate your candor and feel your pain. The best we can learn from this is to be a lot more skeptical and cautious when dealing with authority of any kind or as Ronald Reagan once said: “Trust but Verify”… — bb

  • ChaiTea

    Nortel Wins Approval of Nokia-Led Auction of Unit … latest update from Bloomberg. This is significant since it removes the hurdles that the matlinpatterson and other creditor groups were trying to place.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarch…

  • broadbandbill

    Appreciate your candor and feel your pain. The best we can learn from this is to be a lot more skeptical and cautious when dealing with authority of any kind or as Ronald Reagan once said: “Trust but Verify”… — bb

← Older Comments
  • TwitterCounter for @markevans
  • Seeking Alpha Certified