Nokia Siemens Networks has received unsolicited expressions of interest from private equity firms. CEO Rajeev Suri confirmed the development while speaking at a Spanish telecoms summit in Santander. Suri said the interest from investors was "a testament to the progress we are making”, as the Nokia Siemens venture works on cutting costs, moving to profitability and expanding its market share. He said the company’s turnaround was "well underway", with share gains in key segments, established leadership in next-generation technologies such as LTE, improved financial performance, landmark new deals and the recent deal to acquire Motorola's networks business. Earlier Nokia CFO Timo Ihamuotila and Siemens CFO Joe Kaeser confirmed the private equity interest to the Financial Times, while saying they expect their companies to remain major shareholders in NSN. According to the FT, the potential investors include Blackstone, TPG, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, in a deal that could be worth up to USD 1 billion.
The NSN CEO also addressed industry plans to deal with the growing use of smartphones and accompanying stress on mobile broadband networks. Nokia Siemens Networks is working with Telefonica and Nokia on the Smartphone Experience Lab, which was recently opened in Telefonica premises in Madrid. The lab is developing "the ideal configuration" between mobile handsets, applications and networks to minimize the impact of smart devices on network performance, improve resource consumption and handset and application performance, and provide people with the best possible user experience. The work will include guidelines on the optimum network and handset configurations and application development.
