The Lightwave Blog

Posted by Stephen Hardy

The Financial Post of Canada has a story on its website today suggesting that Nortel could announce the first major asset sale tomorrow, with others following in the near future.

The enterprise business group will be the first to go, the Financial Post reports, perhaps as soon as tomorrow and no later than next week. The Post identifies Avaya and Siemens Enterprise Communications as the chief competitors for the prize.

Meanwhile, the MEN group could be sold in as soon as five weeks; the Post says the group was on the point of being sold when Nortel filed for bankruptcy. Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent, Fujitsu, "and at least one private equity firm" are said to be vying for the group.

You can read the story on the Post's site.

If Nortel does go the breakup route, it will be a huge blow to the Canadian optical communications industry. Besides being the country's flagship fiber-optics company, Nortel has been home to many of the technologists and executives responsible for the other Canadian companies in the space. If the company that acquires MEN pulls the group's resources out of Canada, the vibrancy of Ontario's photonics community will diminish significantly.

Labels: Nortel