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OTTAWA — And so it ends. One hundred and sixteen years after its founding, Nortel Networks has reached a deal to sell all its remaining patents for a remarkable $4.5 billion to a consortium of six high-tech giants — Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony.
The price easily trumped an opening bid of $900 million by Google for all 6,000-plus Nortel patents, and emerged after four days of bidding at the New York offices of Nortel's lawyers.
Assuming the deal passes all the regulatory hurdles, it will be very good news for Nortel creditors — from pensioners and suppliers to debt holders. The amount exceeds the $3.2 billion raised to date through the sale of all of Nortel's active businesses — involving wireless, optical and telephone gear.
Nortel's top remaining executive said the bidding was "very robust."
"The size and dollar value for this transaction is unprecedented, as was the significant interest in the portfolio among major companies around the world," said George Riedel, chief strategy officer of Nortel.
The patent haul is also far greater than the several hundred million dollars former CEO Mike Zafirovski reckoned Nortel would pull in. Of course, Zafirovski's estimate was made in 2009 near the depth of the stock market crash.
Nortel expects to close the sale of its patents by Sept. 30, at which point the firm should have about $7 billion available to distribute to its various creditors. The total value of the claims against Nortel is still guesswork. The company estimates these to be higher than $10 billion, but Canadian debtors alone had submitted 1,011 claims for $29.1 billion as of March 31. Many of these claims are duplicated in other jurisdictions and will be rejected by the bankruptcy court monitor.
Nor is it yet clear how the proceeds will be divided among the different jurisdictions — mediation efforts led by former U.S. federal district court judge Layn R. Phillips failed in April. Creditors in various countries have filed motions in favour of their preferred allocation of the proceeds. Three weeks ago, the Canadian and U.S. bankruptcy judges indicated it would be some time before they ruled on the motions. In the meantime, they suggested mediation efforts continue.
Nortel was the biggest telecommunication company in the world in 2000, with sales of more than $30 billion. Even after accounting scandals and mismanagement, it was generating $11 billion in sales in 2008 — before filing for bankruptcy in January 2009.
The $4.5 billion raised in the patent auction could play in favour of Canadian creditors. That's because the Canadian estate is believed to own most of the patents. The cash from their sale would therefore come to Canada. However, in previous sales of Nortel assets, judges have been careful to note that the proceeds should be held in escrow, with no bias attached to how the cash is allocated.
Nortel began assessing interest in its extensive patent portfolio in May 2010, eventually holding talks with more than 100 potential buyers. Forty companies were keen enough to sign confidentiality agreements and study the intellectual property in detail.
The patents run the full range of communications technologies — including 4G wireless, optical, voice, Internet, data networking, semiconductors and even social networking. While Nortel had lost its lead in many of the technologies, the patents are considered useful in a number of ways.
Research In Motion, which has a relatively small portfolio of patents of its own, can use the Nortel assets to develop new products of its own, or defend itself against patent lawsuits.
Wireless giant Ericsson — which already has an extensive library of wireless patents — likely made a different calculation. The Swedish firm earlier paid more than $1 billion to buy Nortel's wireless technology business, including a number of patents. Unknown was what percentage of those patents was acquired outright, or merely licensed. Ericsson may have purchased Nortel's patents to avoid paying royalties on them.
An interesting footnote to the Nortel patent auction is the role played by Ottawa's two patent licensing firms, Wi-LAN and Mosaid Technologies. Both opted out of the bidding because they couldn't justify spending so much for a relatively meagre stream of royalties. Unlike the members of the RIM consortium, they're not in the business of building products. Wi-LAN and Mosaid have to make the numbers work on the basis of the revenues the Nortel patents can generate now and in the immediate future.
The fact that Nortel was able to garner such a large bid says a lot about the large aspirations of the consortium members. They believe they can transform Nortel's dormant intellectual property into gold — or, at the very least, prevent rivals from doing so.
Either way, Nortel's legacy has been split up into pieces and scattered across the planet.
— with files from Bert Hill
an diesem artikel ist - KEINER in den staaten hat davon notiz genommen... im ihub findet man nichts dazu.
der artikel war der grund, warum ich bei 0,06 raus bin (bin zum glück bei 0,03 rein) - wenn das die runde macht schmiert der kurs erst mal ab... ich glaube zum zocken ist hier bis dezember noch viel zeit... aber von dem 1 dollar pro aktie, von dem immer wieder mal die rede ist, halte ich nichts mehr, solange nicht nortel das gegenteil behauptet.
ich hab jetzt noch ein paar 1000 shares im depot, falls sich doch noch was tut... hab heute gute gewinne gemacht und somit bin ich on the save side.
wollte hier aber alle vorab warnen... es wird vermutlich NICHTS für die shareholder bleiben! "vermutlich" deshalb, weil die zahlen ein ratespiel sind, wie es auch im artikel heißt und es überall andere zahlen zu lesen gibt... der ottawa-citizen ist aber, soweit ich sagen kann, eine seriöse quelle und sitzt an der quelle, in canada... also leute, seid vorsichtig und staubt gewinne ab und setzt nur ein was ihr auch wirklich bei einem totalverlust verkraften könnt!
so und jetzt geh ich ins bett! gut nacht und allen investierten und allen anderen auch ein schönes wochenende!
solangs die aktie gibt, wird auch gezockt - zwar unter anderen rahmenbedingungen, aber viele andere insolvente unternehmen und ihre aktien beweisen es doch tag für tag... man kann auch mit einem "toten unternehmen" geld machen!
aber offenbar stimmt das, das ask steht bei 0,1075
ih.advfn.com/p.php?pid=squote&symbol=NRTLQ
ehrlich... nortel macht mich langsam fertig! lol
also, kann jemand, der sich wirklich auskennt und den durchblick hat, mir das so erklären, dass es auch ein 4 jähriger verstehen würde? :)
war auch immer wieder die rede von kurs-manipulationen, vor allem was den gestrigen pre-market betrifft...
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