Nokia Solutions and Networks is set to lose its executive chairman as Jesper Ovesen following the sale of Nokia’s handset business to Microsoft that is expected to close during the first quarter of 2014.
Ovesen joined NSN in September 2011 when NSN was known as Nokia Siemens Network as a joint venture between the two firms. Nokia bought out Siemens stake in the venture earlier this year taking full control of the most profitable part of its business and changing its name to Nokia Solutions and Networks. Nokia’s half of NSN has helped the struggling Finnish phone maker add to its cash reserves even as its handset business continued to drain cash from the company. Those cash reserves were tapped to finance most of the $2.2 billion purchase price, and Siemens loaned Nokia $650 million to finance the remainder.
NSN is one of the world’s largest maker of mobile infrastructure equipment behind fellow Scandanavian giant Ericsson. The joint venture struggled to remain profitable in recent years, with NSN slashing tens of thousands of jobs in 2012. Unlike Nokia’s handset business, NSN made it back into the black with numerous consecutive profitable quarters under its belt.
Microsoft announced in September plans to acquire Nokia’s device business for $7.2 billon with Nokia maintaining control of its network equipment business, its Nokia HERE mapping tool and its patents, which it will license exclusively to Microsoft for the next 10 years. The takeover had been expected by some ever since Nokia hired Stephen Elop from Microsoft in 2010 and abandoned its Symbian operating system in favor of Microsoft’s Windows.
Ovesen is set to continue to serve in an advisory role for a period after the closing of the Microsoft transaction.
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