(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/Sjoerd van der Wal)
In an effort to strengthen its position against growing global competition, Nokia has completed control of Alcatel-Lucent after securing the minimum threshold—over 50 percent of shares and voting rights—required to take charge of the equipment manufacturer.
Nokia has faced intense rivalry from companies such as Swedish competitor Ericsson and Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Once the world’s leading mobile phone maker, Nokia lost a large share of the handset market and sold its devices division to Microsoft in 2013. The move allowed Nokia to stabilize its finances and refocus on its network and infrastructure businesses.
Under the public exchange offer, which closed on December 23, Nokia proposed 0.55 Nokia shares for each Alcatel-Lucent share. Following the exchange, Nokia now controls roughly 76 percent of Alcatel-Lucent’s shares and voting rights, according to an interim report from the French financial markets authority AMF.
Rajeev Suri, President and CEO of Nokia, commented: “We are pleased the offer has been successful and that Alcatel-Lucent’s investors share our confidence in the future of the combined company. We will move quickly to integrate the two organizations and carry out our planned unification.”
He added, “Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent will deliver a combined, end-to-end portfolio with the breadth and scale to meet the needs of global customers. We will also bring together unmatched R&D and innovation capabilities to lead in the development of next-generation technologies and services.”
Following the AMF announcement, the two companies began executing their integration plans with the aim of operating as a single group starting January 14, 2016.
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