Why the Low Price for GSM Business?

For sure, I'm disappointed by the price of the sale. But in an other way I prefere to see Kapsch to inject money for a worth restructuration in Germany and France in order to secure remaining business and to continue R&D for our customers.

OK, let's not loose to much time on things of the past. What's left on the table now ? CVAS, MSS, some services, patents. Would like to know what creditors think about the best way to handle these assets. If some are profitable what's the rush to sell them ? Any thoughts ?

CVAS will go in a bid for a quarter a bill.

MSS ha ha ha. Nortel expecting a billion for this crown jewel (of glass) too. maybe 10 mill is all its worth.

Transition services maybe. Patents will go for say half a bill.

Keeping a remaining profitable business lines cannot affort to pay multi-lines of claims, pensioners, severance packages, etc., plus a number of blood-suckers, like Z man, Richer Lower cliamers

All we read about is revenues/sales, never earnings / profits.
Why? Because there are no earnings / profits ...only ongoing losses.

Losses for a decade to demise after printing and burning billions while they paid themselves exorbitantly.

Perhaps they fetch a low number because they make no money let alone now after folding.

It was easy to give product away or pay customer to take it selling below cost. Perhaps the buyers are gambling they can somehow turn this around, even after all black belt Ninja cuts in futile hope.

After all, what is anything that loses money truly worth? Kapsch seems to have paid less than half for almost twice more in revenues, for all revenues are worth.

Perhaps this all has something to do with earnings/profit that no one seems to mention because ...well...there are none.

GSM business always have low price. Now I get the reason.

How might that affect Nortel's GSM-R business and support contracts to European rail operators?

I'll almost bet the last Nortel Believers will somehow try to sell GSM-R as "next generation" i.e. "-R" = minus Rail = railless wireless. Recycle your Rails for Added Revenue. Much like Nortel did to itself

This practice could obviously find "global" application, of course.

Resisted commenting for such along time so this will be large, oh and I don’t mess around with what I say either. Worried about my job, I might be after this. My god there are some bitter & twisted views on Nortel, most of them justified, the way the company was miss managed, yep, understand the point, should be a lesson to all in how not to do things. How the staff were treated, yep, pensions, yep it all sucks Nortel Sucks it really does, you got our number called us for what we are a bunch of no hopers, suckers and bastardos of telecommunications, but really are we or are the majority of the employees still at Nortel hard working dedicated professional and battle hardened beyond any other corporate worker. We were a Titanic of a ship that hit an iceberg, No matter how many life boats we had some of us would drown. Too big too top heavy and by far too far up our own arse granted, but not all of the team were steering...
Still being at the company and more in the know than some of the speculators of rubbish that has been posted, I would like to remind such contributors that there is a set of employees of Nortel still in the engine room and playing with the orchestra as the ship sinks, I’m not talking about the executive management, the guys on a large salary, but the middle men of the piece. I’m talking about guys like me, the person who has worked long and hard, to enable an order, to fix a problem and to fight thru corporate red tape to get the job done. 9-5 pah!!! never have I ever worked 9-5 in my job. I worked hard and I worked to enable something that was great about Nortel, and that was togetherness. Since early 2001 we have lost good people to cut backs, they left they got paid, they wanted to stay, but couldn’t then we lost people to the $ who didn’t want to stay so took a package to leave, since 2001 we have had to overcome adapt and work harder and longer to keep the Titanic afloat with the crew (even still over managed) of a life boat. Yes we have known better times, but my god the few that were left did a bloody good job in the circumstances, and we grew to be the tight knit workforce we are today, unfortunately scandal, bubble bursting and poor leadership decisions didn’t see our hard work rewarded in profit. It’s not easy making a profit if the customer has you bent over the desk with your pants down on every deal.
Not all the employees left will be swallowed up in a sale, there will be a large set of very talented people who have enabled the masses to get off the boat and into the E//, Avaya, Ciena and Kapsh life boat safely and without getting wet. With CVAS and MSS still left to go.
Now to my point and reference the article on the bonus to retain staff, it’s not just for the executives. Its for people like me, do you think we should be putting ourselves thru long hours, 12 -15 hours a day, weekends and holidays too, knowing we will have zero at the end. What is the incentive other than the loyalty to those left behind in a business unit, enabling the sale enables the debt to be paid back, enables those left to have a job, enables those who have been left canned with 3 hours notice to get something back, maybe. My pension is dead too, my future in the Nortel world is dead too my chance to redeem something from this mess is to work for my reward earn the extra by not jumping ship and instead helping those who have been lucky enough to get bought out have a business to transition with. Without the support team to enable the sale, who have no future employment, why the hell not give them a bonus to stay. For the guys taking over from Z, why not be paid accordingly it’s a poisoned challis, only morality would prevent them taking more money, we already know they have little problem sleeping so it wont worry them. Do I think its wrong, yes, but do you think deals of this scale just happen, smell the coffee people. Nortel is so intertwined in product, service and process the effort in working this out, needs a lot of work and good leadership. Do we need good people to lead, yes, do we have them, well, and we may already know the answer but give the suckers a chance.
As a side note to those who have felt it necessary to post over 1000 posts, well I would like to say well done, you really are productive; your negative spin has been really supportive, I hope your views being published gave you that rush of blood that only a cold shower could cure. To those of you who lost money in stock, well my god, were you the dumb ass, if you cant lose it don’t risk it, we haven’t been sinking for an hour, you got burnt, for that I pity you for throwing your life into one pot and crossing your fingers. You should have pulled out when the gamble was good. Get over it you screwed up not Nortel on that. To those employees left with nothing my utmost respect and I hope you get what you deserve and get paid in full, in my 14 years it was always a pleasure. A workforce to be proud of and none of this is your fault. To Mike Z your claim for compensation is an insult, you were paid to fix and lead, show some grace in leadership and retract your claim let those without, have, it won’t restore your credibility but it’s the right thing to do. For the multi millionaire ex employees – well you had to have earned that money whilst in a position to influence. I hope your thanks giving turkey was burnt this year. And lastly to the sales guys, well you got your SIP’s, you hit the targets and got the orders in, however you dunce a margin had to be included in the sale to make all my F*ing effort worth while, 50% discount on top of the already negotiated preference rate or they will go elsewhere, perhaps a bluff or a walk away from the table may have given the operations a chance to turn the ship around and not lose money based on pie in the sky promises.

OK my rant over – I hand you back to the normal speculative spin of doom and ill informed facts that are the main contributors to the blogs. It’s been an interesting read, for the most part, informative in the articles, the comments are not so well researched or in most cases truthful. You can tell the people who work or have worked recently at Nortel, less bitter than those who have got burnt on the market.
If I have upset anyone from my rant, then comment, I can take it I am a Nortel employee my year can’t get any worse my skin can’t get any thicker and I am proud to have worked with the people I work for. Hic…..

Couldn't have said it better.

You dont get it! You were the problem, supporting, not as blindly as you have in the past, but supporting and working on directives from the management you so loath with out an ounce of protest. I accept that the financial scandals and assclowns whcih ran the company were the torpedo's that hit the ammunition deck. But please lets be honest for a second "duck and cover" has been the Nortel way since 2000 and you and your cronies played it better than anyone. Middle management 5-6's were in perpetual duck and cover mode bulking up teams in order to keep the "best" talent aka your best buddies (buddy system for the Titanic, remember!). The culture ingrained by middle management (most are very very long in the tooth) and worker bees was the strategy, regardless of the pathetic lack of ability of upper management. So yes you busted your hump and never worked 9-5, we all worked 10 -15 hour days, but on things that eventually made no sense and in ways that could never be commercially successful, btw that is an important part of being in business, not the sock price (I contend that CDMA was a fluke). Nortel as a group never had any idea where the markets were going or more importantly how to get there. Working off the laurels of the success in the 80's you remained stagnant and never upgraded your own management skills...You lacked flexibility and adaptability in your own thinking which allowed you to remove any sense of responsibility or accountability. Ultimately you were your own worst nightmare, but you have never really looked in the mirror have you!

Very asinine comments. How many people do you know will protest and not do what their boss says? I don't know any either. You talk about flexibility and adaptability, that tells me if you ever worked at Nortel, you were let go years ago.

You're talking butt-kiss; a lot of people actually engage in chronic dialogue with superiors even if it bears no professional fruit.

The price of socks - really are not any issue get them from the local wall mart.
"You lacked flexibility and adaptability in your own thinking which allowed you to remove any sense of responsibility or accountability."
I think as employees being asked to deliver our own particular tasks without these skills in the conditions over the past 7 years or so, well we would have sunk faster than we did. Being flexible and adaptable and responsible and accountable, remember that M&A of over priced technology is not in the hands of the small guys, nobody consulted the lower end to spend billions chasing dreams.
Looking in the mirror, well I think that was our biggest problem, we kept on changing tactic as we didn’t know or like what we saw, never held a straight line long enough to make a plan work. As for me, looking in the mirror is not a problem. We are good people, led badly, doing the best we can to save what we have, our jobs, our life, our family.

those who have felt it necessary to post over 1000 posts, I hope your views being published gave you that rush of blood that only a cold shower could cure.

I'm as bitter and negative as either geezer who occupied the balcony at the Muppet Show. Its cast members remained Believers always.

Are you Statler or Waldorf ?

Fozzy Bear

hm.. probably depends on my balance of meds on any given day . ;p

(Lest he come around and slap us silly we probably should mention that Joel Hackney is Miss Piggy in drag.)

CVAS?

By the way, yes, what of CVAS - no stalking horse - no nothing. Only rumours are that Genband and Sonus are interested and I don't think they have the balance sheet to pick up such a large business unit. Could NT really hold on to MSS and CVAS and that become the new Nortel? Please say it ain't so, I think we all need this to come to a Chapter 7 end by July 2010...

Believe me it will be none of the 2 you mentioned. They cannot afford it. But there will be a Stalking Horse.

heavencanwait- what do you know? Those of us in CVAS are getting anxious. I felt like with our market share and reliable product that we would have had a stalking horse by now!!

Think the CVAS stalking horse will be announced this year? I think if they don't announce something ASAP, it's in trouble of sinking with the rest of the Nortanic aka Ch 7

They are trying to drag this out and enjoy the ride ...As long as AIP and bonus money are still there, they are in no hurry to close out the shop..The scoundrels in IT/NBS are loving it...100-150% bonus is not too bad...."Do little..and get more" that's the motto.

CS2K is everywhere in many N.A wireless networks. I'm surprised that no one is interested in CVAS business.

As for MSS, it makes more sense to include the business in CVAS since the MSS15K is the the platform (albeit..getting old) for many boxes (MG) in the wireless solution.

one small problem. nobody wants MSS. they tried to package it with MEN, GSM, CVAS, CDMA. Gateway business is going out too in general it is down. MSS based is old stuffwhen everyone is going IP now. Noboy wants liability for a disaster waiting to happen.

hey, this is too long

Go back to work ;-)

just kidding, good luck for future

cheers

Here's something to consider. How many Wireless Operators are deploying brand new 2G GSM infrastructure? Chances are, very few as evidenced by Telus and Bell in Canada completely skipping 2G GSM in favor of 3G HSPA. The same type of thing is happening with 2G CDMA2000 versus 3G EV-DO Rev. A.

Ericsson has purchased GSM footprint and support contracts for hardware and software support. They didn't buy this business thinking they would sell a bunch more 2G GSM equipment. Having new base accounts with T-Mobile and AT&T will be valuable as they continue to expand their 3G HSPA footprint and for future evolution to 4G LTE networks.

Exactly ... they bought the base to upgrade in the future ... it's a cash cow with some more milk to extract ... they got a great deal IMHO.

Nothing like letting the nuts out with a few IDs (above) to kill a thread. The verbose lisping diatribe was meaningless and challenge. The same old false stage painted before elaboration is hard to shake as a dead giveaway, claiming "I don't post often but"... we know who it is from the pumper on Yahoo. Crooks are not smart.

Also, I don't believe the philou brothers new IDs above (one losing the accent) is even an employee to sympathize with. He lies. And then here comes brown nose TongeInCheeks incessantly compulsive technobabble for a dead fraud dog of a pay happy company telling us to consider what he thinks others will do when always wrong for any credibility or to think readers are stupid as him over the years. Ted Bundly was a good lawyer too but koo-koo nuts.

Excuse me for not being polite like the media, I express my views bluntly and they have proven true /dead on so far, even when swimming against the tide. stalking, patronizing, liars and crooks are stupid and will not fool me =) I expose crooks any time I find them. =)

liars and crooks are stupid and will not fool me =) I expose crooks any time I find them. =)
====
re
so u 2 working 4 rcmp?
why the white collar depot has so limited financing?
how can we put f dunn behind the bars if he has more money than all the unit at rcmp?
/just joking ;-)/

New id, bitch.

Verbose, lisping diatribes are all you've ever offered. And as for being true/dead on so far, with your shotgun approach you could hardly miss.

Short and succinct, I'll leave space for goproto and others to crawl back up your ass. What a douche!

nobody wanted it.

Mark, ever seen a sign outside a store "Closing down sale. Everything must go". Would you pay list, 50% or 75% off. And would you not still negotiate down?

of course the duds at Nortel could have done better by setting a minimum bid. that requires some business acumen if not creativity.

And NOW for some REAL news !

CBC story about the obscene Nortel exec raises:

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/11/26/nortel...

Video #1 here: http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/player.html?clipid...

Video #2 here: http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/player.html?clipid...

Video #3 here: http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/player.html?clipid...

Video #4 here: http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/player.html?clipid...

A bill is in the process of being enacted to put employees and pensioners ahead of the banks and bondholders as preferred creditors, than at the very end of the line where they would lose everything for what will be left.

Their big business creditors and pals will not be happy but...

The raises and bonuses over the severances and pensions have finally sparked enough outrage and outcry that some one is actually doing something about it by amending our prehistoric bankruptcy laws to close this loophole.

They believe they can pass this bill (to be called "The Nortel Bill"), before Nortel goes into full blown bankruptcy in able for them to protect the employees and pensioners.

It looks like employees and pensioners will be very happy with this terrific news.

Hooray to the moral majority who has the power to act through legislation protecting the employees form big business loopholes, barons, and tyranny.

Perhaps this will also better protecting shareholders in the future by having big business and banks rethink just how protected their investment is by financing their losing pal's ventures in the belief they will get paid first anyways and with exorbitant interest rates to boot! Now they shoot the tyrants in the dark after nuking them til they glow =) Remember the resigned CEO didn't want to attend the government hot seat inquiry, he was forced by subpoena. The wheels of justice turn slow, lets hope this bill moves through the house of commons fast enough now as they think it will.

What is the Bill number ?

I am sorry I didn't get any number than it called the "Nortel Bill" (reiterating what I heard on television news this morning)

However, more is starting to surface as this was just released:

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/11/27/ottawa...

'Nortel bill' would protect workers, pensioners
Last Updated: Friday, November 27, 2009 | 12:18 PM ET

A private member's bill proposed by a New Democrat MP could help protect employees and pensioners in the wake of a corporate collapse.

Wayne Marston, a Hamilton-area MP, tabled the so-called Nortel bill in early November to change the federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act so that former workers and pensioners would become preferred creditors in situations of corporate bankruptcy.

Currently, former workers — like those who were with Nortel Networks Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in January — are considered unsecured creditors and are at the back of the line to receive payouts from bankruptcy proceedings.

While opposition bills are rarely passed into law, Marston said his proposed legislation has been well-received by both government and opposition members. However, he stressed that Parliament needs to work quickly to get the amendments in place in time to help former Nortel employees.
______________________________________________

even though this sounds like it is an if situation and albeit highly plausible, the news this morning made it sound like a slam dunk in that it will be indeed be passed, and prior to their final Chapter 7 in able for them to be able to do so. It is encouraging, welcome, and very hopeful news.

Also look how polite the media remains refusing to rake Nortel over the coals for their ongoing actions after do much support and benefit of doubt:

-they fought to keep fraud bonuses at a kangaroo AGM and simply they printed paper (prioritized creditors paper) to pay the fraud fallout with fraud costing them nothing for this level of mass orchestration

-rewarding and prioritizing financial innovation over technological, and before loopholes were closed so shortly thereafter failing to specifically list their largest pension deficit in Canada, than a mere footnote in bonds application (again, bondholders are secured)

-refusing to negotiate pay practices in ultimatum settlement they tanked with further revisions to claim mark-to-market profits/bonuses

-even got bonuses approved by ultimatum again after bankruptcy

-even traded the boards options for cash yet again, a stunt not seen since what got them into this mess to begin with, past directors denying obvious red flags for bonuses they approved and received before timely resigning, as Nortel remained reluctant to chase past officers even after repeated requests (heh, reluctant to chase? our goldenboy and ad-gate Liberal finance minister Manley, who's law firm defends Frank Dunn for bonus gate fraud ...of all people, a board member with no laws against this type of conflict of interest!)

It was endless and totally astounding beyond belief to be see how bonus driven they remained after the largest fraud in Canada that directly resulted from these bonuses... even forced by the government by subpoena after the fraud as last CEO and CFO get sued for misleading to boot

The media is too polite, I would have drilled them a new orifice.
At least the outcry and outrage is becoming more vocal and profiled.

These far from destitute crooks and pigs at the trough are to be seen to be believed.

...and some wonder why I remain so eccentrically passionate over the years to this...heh... with inaction something terrible happens as you can see... nothing!

I hope our MPs are overwhelmingly swamped with requests to rush this bill before the cash from assets goes bye-bye to their big business creditors!

Further word on "Report on Business" is that their bondholders and banker pals will protest this bill, as to why it should effect them...a messy case that could threaten getting it passed in time I fear.

One might assess their argument better given:
Nortel hid their largest pension deficit in Canada and it was entered as a mere footnote in $2B bonds application (a loophole closed immediately thereafter) These bonds paid the fraud fallout as they voted to keep fraud bonuses. Their largest asset listed on books they sought to clean so long was a tax credit (something CEO and CFO are getting sued for, as Manleys law firm defends Dunn)

Their ultimatum settlement refused to negotiate pay practices and was followed by further revisions from their months to years in repair of controls. They even paid bonuses, raises, and traded options after folding.

These crooked actions should circumvent bankruptcy loopholes and their big business creditor's interests to follow the intent than letter of the law their loophole artists and army of lawyers always seem to use.