Nokia Details Post-Alcatel-Lucent Takeover Structure

Nokia executives will continue to dominate the board of the company if its £11.2 billion takeover of Alcatel-Lucent is completed, although the Finnish firm will not sell off the Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ALSN) subsidiary.

The new company will be divided into five units, with all operating as separate business groups with strategic, operational and financial responsibilities and reporting to Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri.

Mobile Networks will be headed up by Samih Elhag, current CFO and COO of Nokia, Fixed Networks will be led by Federico Guillén, who holds the same role at Alcatel Lucent, Applications and Analytics will be championed by current Alcatel president of IP platforms and the chief of IP/Optical Networks will be Basil Alwan, who serves as president of IP Routing and Transport at the French firm.

Nokia structure

There will be no change at Nokia Technologies, whose president will remain Ramzi Haidamus, while ALSN, which operates hundreds of kilometres of undersea cables, will continue to remain a subsidiary of the new firm.

“Our goal is to position each business group for clear leadership in its particular market and to create a combined portfolio that provides the scope and scale our customers expect, underpinned by a strong focus on innovation, quality and superb execution,” explained Suri.

“We aim for all our business groups to be innovation leaders, drawing on the combined company’s unparalleled R&D capabilities to deliver leading products and services for our customers, and ultimately ensure the company’s long-term value creation.”

Executive dominance

However despite the relatively even distribution of business heads, things are little different elsewhere. Current Nokia executives will serve as the combined firm’s CFO, chief strategy officer (CSO), chief marketing officer (CMO), chief legal officer (CLO), chief customer operations officer (CCOO), chief innovation & operating officer (CIOO), chief human resources officer (CHRO).

The EU has already given its blessing to the transaction after being satisfied the merger would not distort competition in the telecoms network equipment market.

A merger between the two firms had long been mooted and it is hoped the new Nokia can become a European networking giant better equipped to compete with rivals and aid telecom firms and large enterprises cope with fixed, mobile, cloud and IoT growth.

Nokia hopes to complete the transaction early next year if it clears all of the regulatory hurdles as it puts all of its eggs firmly in one network basket following the sale of its devices business to Microsoft and the offloading of HERE Maps to a consortium of German car makers.

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