Nokia has sold most of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft, as originally announced in September last year. The deal also includes an agreement to license patents to Microsoft.
Although the deal was originally worth €5.44 billion (£4.48 billion), Nokia says it now expects the total transaction price to be slightly higher than this.
There have also been other changes, with Nokia retaining its manufacturing facilities in Chennai (India) and closing its plant in Masan (South Korea). Nokia’s Chennai facility is currently subject to an asset freeze as a result of tax proceedings by the Indian authorities. It’ll be used by Nokia to produce mobile devices for Microsoft.
Satya Nadella and Stephen Elop
Jo Harlow, Juha Putkiranta, Timo Toikkanen, Chris Weber and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will be transferring from the Nokia management team to Microsoft. In total, Microsoft is gaining around 25,000 employees from Nokia.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, said “Today we welcome the Nokia Devices and Services business to our family. The mobile capabilities and assets they bring will advance our transformation. Together with our partners, we remain focused on delivering innovation more rapidly in our mobile-first, cloud-first world.”