Nokia Offers to Buy Telecom Software Firm Comptel for $370 Million

Finnish telecoms network equipment maker Nokia said on Thursday it is seeking to buy telecom software company Comptel for about EUR 347 million ($370 million or roughly Rs. 2,479 crores) to expand its software services business.

Nokia and its rivals, Sweden's Ericsson and China's Huawei have struggled recently as demand for faster 4G mobile broadband equipment has peaked and the move to the next-generation 5G networks are still years away.

Nokia said its customers were now turning to software to make their networks more intelligent.

"The planned acquisition is part of Nokia's strategy to build a standalone software business at scale by expanding and strengthening its software portfolio and go-to-market capabilities with additional sales capacity and a strategic partner network," Nokia said in a statement.

The cash offer by Nokia, 3.04 euros per share, represents a premium of 29 percent compared with Comptel's last closing price.

Comptel, which had sales of about 100 million euros in 2016, said its board of directors, and shareholders that hold about 48 percent of the shares backed the offer.

Last year, Nokia bought Franco-American group Alcatel-Lucent in a 15.6 billion-euro all-share deal and is cutting thousands of jobs as it seeks to reduce annual costs by EUR 1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by 2018.

© Thomson Reuters 2017