Nokia Offloads Major Stake In Vertu, Buys Most Of Scalado And Is All Set To Cut 10,000 Jobs Worldwide By 2013
Some major news from Finland, this morning. Nokia’s announced the sale of a major stake in its luxury brand, Vertu, to EQT VI, retaining only 10%. And next, it announced that it will be acquiring Scalado’s assets – developers, technologies and intellectual property from the Sweden-based company. If you don’t know what Scalado is – they’re an imaging technology company, and RIM has licensed their camera tech from Scalado. (Wikipedia on Scalado)
courtesy – Gizmodo
Both these pieces of news are great – Vertu was increasingly becoming a liability for the Finns, and offloading a major stake in the luxury brand should help them lower their operating and opportunity costs. Scalado, on the other hand, is a great asset acquisition. Nokia’s already a leader in mobile imaging, and this should further help them futureproof their position as one. Two great advantages, which most of the leading sites won’t be ready to highlight.
Now for the sad news – the Finns have rejigged the top management – three key people – Niklas Savendar, Mary McDowell and Jerri DeVard are leaving the company in search of better opportunities. Savendar was the executive Vice President of Markets, McDowell was executive VP of Mobile Phones and DeVard was the executive Vice President and the Chief Marketing Officer too. She was a member of the Leadership Team at Nokia, too. Too many roles? She stayed with Nokia for a short period as well – from Jan 2011 till June 2012 – 17 months, roundabout.
Also, Nokia will be laying off 10,000 employees worldwide, in to 2013. 3,700 of that will be from Finland itself, Nokia’s home.
Furthermore, they issued a profit warning as well, for the third quarter, 2012. They expect it to be similar or equal to the first quarter level of -3%. Quite, quite bad.. but a turnaround doesn’t happen in months, you know.
So, five bullet points to summarise -
- Nokia sells major stake in Vertu.
- Nokia acquires Scalado’s assets.
- Niklas Savendar, Mary McDowell and Jerri DeVard are leaving the company.
- Layoffs – 10,000 worldwide, 3,700 of which are in Finland itself.
- Profit warning for the third quarter of 2012.
I don’t think it’s all bad news for the ailing company. But I do feel bad for the employees who are going to be shown the door.
