Nokia, the famous Finnish company that has stopped producing smartphones since last year, announced today its intention to buy the French company Alcatel-Lucent in an agreement that will remove 16.6 billion dollars from his accounts, but will increase his ability to develop communication technologies and not only that. The two companies have more than 40.000 employees worldwide developing various communication technologies, and with more than 4.7 billion dollars spent in 2014 alone for research and development, it is clear that their union will bring even more benefits to the whole world in the future years after the merger.
Nokia last year it was left without the division that develops smartphones and the few tablets, Microsoft saving it from bankruptcy through its acquisition, thus like now the company has enough resources to reorganize and reposition itself on the market as a "player" that develops telecommunications technologies for the future. Both companies have an impressive portfolio of patents that they license to various entities around the world, so they have enough resources to develop in the future, now it only remains to be seen how much we will all gain from the collaboration between they.
NOKIA AND ALCATEL-LUCENT TO COMBINE TO CREATE AN INNOVATION LEADER IN NEXT GENERATION TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICES FOR AN IP CONNECTED WORLD
NOKIA AND ALCATEL-LUCENT TO COMBINE TO CREATE AN INNOVATION LEADER IN NEXT GENERATION TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICES FOR AN IP CONNECTED WORLD
Helsinki & Paris, April 15, 2015 – Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent announce today their intention to combine to create an innovation leader in next generation technology and services for an IP connected world. The two companies have entered into a memorandum of understanding under which Nokia will make an offer for all of the equity securities issued by Alcatel-Lucent, through a public exchange offer in France and in the United States, on the basis of 0.55 of a new Nokia share for every Alcatel-Lucent share. The all-share transaction values Alcatel-Lucent at EUR 15.6 billion on a fully diluted basis, corresponding to a fully diluted premium of 34% (equivalent to EUR 4.48 per share), and a premium to shareholders of 28% (equivalent to EUR 4.27 per share) (see Appendix 1), on the unaffected weighted average share price of Alcatel-Lucent for the previous three months. This is based on Nokia's unaffected closing share price of EUR 7.77 on April 13, 2015.
Each company's Board of Directors has approved the terms of the proposed transaction, which is expected to close in the first half of 2016. The proposed transaction is subject to approval by Nokia's shareholders, completion of relevant works council consultations, receipt of regulatory approvals and other customary conditions.
Enabling the connected world
The combined company will be uniquely positioned to create the foundation of seamless connectivity for people and things wherever they are. This foundation is essential for enabling the next wave of technological change, including the Internet of Things and transition to the cloud.
The combined company will have unparalleled innovation capabilities, with Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs and Nokia's FutureWorks, as well as Nokia Technologies, which will stay as a separate entity with a clear focus on licensing and the incubation of new technologies.
With more than 40 R&D employees and spend of EUR 000 billion in R&D in 4.7, the combined company will be in a position to accelerate development of future technologies including 2014G, IP and software-defined networking, cloud, analytics as well as sensors and imaging.
Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia have highly complementary portfolios and geographies, with particular strength in the United States, China, Europe and Asia-Pacific. They will also bring together the best of fixed and mobile broadband, IP routing, core networks, cloud applications and services. This combination is expected to create access to an expanded addressable market with improved long term growth opportunities.
Consumers are looking to access data, voice and video across networks of all kinds. In this environment technology that used to operate independently now needs to work well together. That is not always the case today, but together Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent are uniquely suited to help telecom operators, internet players and large enterprises address this challenge.
