ESPOO, Finland — Nokia has launched a cash offer to acquire all of the shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own, at a price of EUR 3.647 per share. The net cash outlay from Nokia to purchase the approximately 52 percent of Symbian Limited shares it does not already own will be approximately EUR 264 million.
Nokia has received irrevocable undertakings from Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. and Siemens International Holding BV to accept the offer, representing approximately 91 percent of the Symbian shares subject to the offer. Nokia also expects Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to accept the offer.
The acquisition is a fundamental step in the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, announced today by Nokia, together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.
Seeing this acquisition as a significant milestone in the company's software strategy, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia claims that the establishment of the Symbian Foundation will make Symbian the most attractive platform for mobile innovation that will drive the development of new and compelling, web-enabled applications for a new generation of consumers.
Mobile devices based on Symbian OS account for 60 percent of the converged mobile device segment according to the analyst firm Canalys for the 12 months period to Q1 2008.
Further, Strategy Analytics states that the Symbian OS represented approximately 7 percent of all mobile device sales in 2007, up from 5 percent in 2006. To date, more than 200 million Symbian OS based phones have been shipped, over 235 models, from 8 vendors and on more than 250 mobile networks around the world. More than 4 million developers are engaged in producing applications for Symbian devices.
Nokia expects the acquisition to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2008 and is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. On a reported basis, Nokia expects the transaction to be dilutive in 2009, approximately breakeven in 2010, and accretive in 2011. On a cash basis, Nokia expects the transaction to be dilutive in 2009 and accretive in 2010 and 2011. After the closing, all Symbian employees will become Nokia employees.
More information about the planned foundation can be found at www.symbianfoundation.org.
