Symbian Software Ltd.’s shareholders raised their stakes in the company this week, but rivals kept Nokia Corp.’s equity stake below 50 percent, ensuring the operating system developer would maintain its independent image.
Nokia, Panasonic, Siemens AG and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications split Psion plc’s previously held 31.1-percent equity stake in Symbian. Now, Nokia holds 47.9 percent, Sony Ericsson holds 13.1 percent, Panasonic holds 10.9 percent and Siemens owns 8.4 percent. Meanwhile, Ericsson’s equity decreased to 15.6 percent, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s was reduced to 4.5 percent.
“I am delighted with the shareholders’ unanimous commitment to Symbian’s future as an independent company,” said David Levin, Symbian’s chief executive officer. “The additional investment will enable Symbian to accelerate Symbian OS development, in particular to support Symbian OS for lower cost, mass market, advanced phones for both 2.5G and 3G environments.”
Psion announced earlier this year it would sell its entire 31.1-percent stake in Symbian to Nokia, which would have pushed Nokia’s stake in Symbian from 32.2 percent to 63.3 percent. However, each Symbian stakeholder was also offered the option to increase its stake. If all of Symbian’s stakeholders had exercised their pre-emption rights, Nokia would have been able to increase its Symbian stake only to 46.7 percent.
“The broad and unified shareholder commitment shown today is the best evidence of Symbian’s ability to support demanding needs of the industry today and in the future,” Matti Alahuhta, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Nokia, said of the transaction.
In resolving the equity sale and rights issue, Sony Ericsson shelled out $104.9 million, Nokia spent $171 million, Panasonic invested $30.9 million and Siemens spent $36.8 million. In addition, the shareholders raised nearly $93 million in additional funding to facilitate further adoption of the Symbian operating system. The shareholders also agreed to appoint an independent, non-executive chairman to Symbian’s board, who will be named later this year.
Symbian said that as of June 30, 34 Symbian phones were being readied for market by 10 licensees vs. 26 phones and nine licensees a year ago.
