Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia Devices and Services business is scheduled to close in two days on Friday, April 25th, 2014, as both are performing the necessary steps to close the deal.
The transaction was officially announced back in September 3rd, 2013, when Microsoft announced its EUR 3.79 billion deal to purchase the business, plus EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents, making it a total of EUR 5.44 billion.
Several amendments to the original agreement have been made, that covers assets from manufacturing to IT. Microsoft will take over management of Nokia.com and all of its social media sites for up to a year. In the original deal, all employees in Nokia’s Chief Technology Office will remain with Nokia, but Microsoft will be grabbing 21 of the employees in that department in China, who are working on mobile phones.
There was also a leaked email Nokia sent to its suppliers revealing that Nokia Oyj will be renamed to Microsoft Mobile Oy upon closure of the transaction. Oyj is the equivalent to public limited company (‘berhad’ in Malaysia) and Oy is the same as a limited liability company (‘sendirian berhad’ in Malaysia).
Please note that upon the close of the transaction between Microsoft and Nokia, the name of Nokia Corporation/Nokia Oyj will change to Microsoft Mobile Oy. Microsoft Mobile Oy is the legal entity name that should be used for VAT IDs and for the issuance of invoices.
Another revelation of that email is that apart from Microsoft retaining the existing suppliers, the new Nokia also intends to keep the same supplier base for its other continuing businesses that are not sold to Microsoft, like Nokia Solutions and Networks, HERE Maps, or Nokia Advanced Technologies.
Microsoft’s acquisition covers both Nokia’s ‘Smart Devices’, and ‘Mobile Phones’ business units, and gets a 10-year licensing deal to continue to use the ‘Nokia’ brand, but only for Series 30, Series 40, Asha, and Nokia X mobile phones. While Microsoft now owns the Lumia brand as well, it is still unclear whether its next batch of Windows Phones will retain the ‘Nokia Lumia’ branding or be changed to ‘Microsoft Lumia’. More will be known in two days.
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