Nortel To Sell Enterprise Business Friday

Toronto-based Nortel, which is selling its businesses to pay off its creditors, will auction its second biggest division next Friday.

The enterprise unit that makes network equipment will be auctioned under court supervision.

US-based Avaya is one of the bidders with an offer of $475 million.

The 124-year-old Canadian icon has been operating under bankruptcy protection since January after suffering losses of $5 billion last year.

On July 28, Nortel sold its next-generation wireless business to Sweden’s Ericsson under a court-supervised auction for $1.13 billion.

But the deal is being reviewed after BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) and political parties pressured the Canadian government not to let ‘sensitive technology’ fall into foreign hands.

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Now Nortel’s enterprise unit that makes network equipment – routers, IP phones, switches and other security products – for big corporations goes under the hammer next Friday under court supervision.

The media here says that apart from Avaya, there is another bidder which could be either Berlin-based Siemens Enterprise Communications or New York-based private equity firm MatlinPatterson Global Advisers LLC.

Like the sale of Nortel’s next-generation wireless business in July, the auction of the second biggest division will also have to be approved by bankruptcy courts in the US and Canada. (IANS)