TORONTO — Nortel Networks, once a technology giant, has decided to sell itself off in pieces rather than attempt to emerge from bankruptcy as a restructured company.
Nokia Siemens Networks agreed to buy some wireless operations of Canada’s Nortel Networks Corp. in a $650 million deal as the more than century- old Nortel announced it is looking for buyers for the rest of its assets.
The Finnish-German joint venture said Saturday it had agreed to buy the CDMA and LTE wireless technology assets of Nortel, a former telecommunications equipment powerhouse that sought bankruptcy protection in January. The deal is subject to court approval under an auction process in which other bidders could make higher offers.
Nokia Siemens is looking to strengthen its position in North American markets.
Nortel chief executive Mike Zafirovski had hoped to restructure and preserve Nortel since seeking bankruptcy protection in Canada and the United States.
“This is not the path which we worked so hard to get to,” Zafirovski said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“We’re in advanced discussions with anywhere from three to seven companies for each one of the assets,” he said. “If we’re successful in getting the right value and the right integration planning and so on, then Nortel as an entity which we know it will no longer be here in the future.”
Zafirovski said the enterprise business, the optical Metro Internet business and the carrier voice over IP and application business as well as part of the wireless business are among the assets still up for sale.
Nortel also said it will ask to have its shares delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Nortel employs more than 25,000 people around the world. After the dot-com bust in the early part of this decade, Nortel had an accounting crisis that sparked shareholder lawsuits, regulatory investigations and the firing of key executives.
