Nokia plans to further strengthen its NFV, SDN and software focus with purchase of fellow Finnish company Comptel in a deal valued at $370.8 million.
Nokia is set to bolster its network software plans through a pending acquisition of Comptel, which is focused on service orchestration and fulfillment services, in a deal valued at 347 million euros ($370.8 million).
Nokia said the acquisition of the fellow Finland-based company follows on plans announced late last year to boost its software capabilities as it looks to “rebalance” operations between hardware and software. Comptel is expected to bring strength with catalog-driven fulfillment and digital service lifecycle management, event processing, applications for customer engagement and service monetization; and technologies for context-aware on-device commerce and internet of things pattern detection.
If completed, Comptel’s operations would be combined with Nokia’s Cloudband and Nuage portfolios in allowing the company to offer end-to-end orchestration of network functions virtualization and software-defined networking deployments.
“Nokia is committed to building its software business and is backing its commitment with strategic investments,” said Bhaskar Gorti, president of Nokia’s Applications and Analytics business group, in a statement. “The timing of the Comptel purchase is important as our customers are changing the way they build and operate their networks. They are turning to software to provide more intelligence, automate more of their operations and realize the efficiency gains that virtualization promises. We want to help them by offering one of the industry’s broadest and most advanced portfolios. Comptel helps us do that.”
RCR Wireless News recently spoke with Nick Cadwgan, director of IP mobile networking at Nokia, as part of our “NFV/SDN Reality Check” video show to discuss the operator benefits of the company’s Cloud Packet Core platform and how it fits into “5G” network plans.
Nokia late last year helped form the NFV Interoperability Testing Initiative with vendors Cisco Systems, Ericsson and Huawei in a move to tackle continued multivendor interoperability testing challenges for NFV deployments. The NFV-ITI included a memorandum of understanding to support interoperability of NFV elements in “specific customer situations to accelerate the commercial implementations, and to reduce the time-to-market for new applications and services.”
Comptel currently counts more than 800 employees in 32 countries, with major sites in Finland, Bulgaria, Malaysia, India, the United Kingdom and Norway. Nokia said the acquisition is not expected to have any impact on jobs at Comptel.
Comptel claims to process 20% of the world’s mobile usage data every day, and orchestrates communications and digital services for more than 2 billion end-users daily.
RCR Wireless News recently spoke with Mikko Jarva, CTO of intelligent data at Comptel, as part of our “Carrier Wrap” video show to get some background on the company as well as its view on how sponsored data products can benefit consumers while creating greater engagement for digital service providers and new revenue streams for operators.
Terms of the deal
Nokia is offering 3.04 euros per outstanding share of Comptel stock, which is said to be a 28.8% premium over the stock’s closing price on Feb. 8, and a 51.8% premium compared with the stock’s volume-weighted average trading price during the past year. Nokia is also offering 2.56 euros for each 2014A option right, 2.16 euros for each 2014B option right, 1.53 euros for each 2014C option right, 2.15 euros for each 2015A option right and 2.15 euros for each 2015B option right.
Comptel reported 98 million euros in revenues in 2015, with an 8.7% operating margin.
The share offer is expected to begin Feb. 27, and run for approximately four weeks. Comptel’s board is recommending shareholders and option holders accept the offer.
“The board of directors of Comptel believes that Nokia’s global reach, strength of brand and cross-selling opportunities would benefit the activities of Comptel,” said company chairman Pertti Ervi in a statement. “Combining Comptel’s business with Nokia would offer the customers of both Comptel and Nokia a wider and more innovative software portfolio which would improve competitiveness of the combined business unit, especially in the eyes of larger customers.”
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