NextWave Wireless Inc. offloaded a majority stake of its subsidiary IPWireless Inc. The long-time industry lightning-rod sold 75% of its stake for $1 million to IPW Holdings, a senior management team of IPWireless. NextWave will also be reimbursed for transaction expenses, for up to $500,000.

IPWireless is a California-based TD-CDMA wireless broadband network equipment and subscriber terminal supplier.

The move falls in line with NextWave’s announcement earlier this year that it will exit the network infrastructure business and eventually divest IPWireless. NextWave acquired IPWireless in April 2007 for $100 million in cash and stock, but according to Boston.com NextWave warned it was facing bankruptcy a few months ago, likely leading to this sale.

Following the transaction’s close, IPWireless and IPW Holdings entered into a separate transaction and IPWireless received debt financing. Further, William Jones, senior officer of IPWireless and IPW Holdings has resigned from his positions as a member of NextWave’s Board of Directors and his role as CEO of NextWave Network Products. Jones will now place his efforts with IPWireless. Moving forward, NextWave will have no responsibilities to support IPWireless.

The sale is just the latest for NextWave. The company also recently nixed GO Networks, its operational unit that developed wide-area Wi-Fi network equipment. The company also this year sold two-thirds of its spectrum holdings for $150.1 million. The largest portion went to T-Mobile USA Inc.

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One Response

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1. JT
   December 29, 2008 02:13 pm

   I dont recall the spectrum holdings being closed. Nextwave entered into a deal to sell the spectrum to T-Mobile but the sale was subject to FCC approval. Subsequently, Nextwave entered into a debt financing arrangement for ~$100MM (might be more) which would have been secured against the T-Mobile deal closing.

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