Nortel could survive as a patents business

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Nortel could survive as a patents business

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 4 August, 2009

READ MORE: M&A | Nortel Networks | CDMA | LTE

The slightly bizarre battle between Nortel and fellow Canadian vendor RIM over the former's wireless assets still grumbles along, and has revived speculation that Nortel may have a plan to preserve its brand and a couple of business activities and emerge from Chapter X1 as a rump company.

Most of Nortel's valuable wireless patent portfolio was excluded from the sale of LTE and CDMA businesses to Ericsson, which was approved by bankruptcy courts last Tuesday (although RIM is still calling for Canadian government intervention). This could arguably become the basis of a much smaller, but profitable, business focused mainly on licensing, and could see a mini-Nortel emerging from Chapter X1 with its venerable name intact - provided it can raise sufficient funds from the sale of its other businesses to pay off creditors to the satisfaction of the US and Canadian bankruptcy courts. Next on the block is the enterprise unit, whose stalking horse bidder is Avaya.

The fact that most of the IPR was excluded from the Ericsson deal would also explain the interest of RIM. Few could believe the BlackBerry maker suddenly wanted to diversify into infrastructure, and its protestations of patriotism and a Canadian solution for Nortel were surely not enough to justify a massive outlay on Nortel assets. But gaining the IPR could create a strong expansion of RIM's existing licensing and patent activities, boosting its position in the LTE value chain and providing a useful counterweight to inevitable pressure on sales and margins of its devices and push email systems, in an increasingly competitive market.

RIM could see the patents as giving it a headstart over larger rivals in creating LTE BlackBerry devices and services going forward, and may also welcome the boost to its licensing arsenal, both for future revenues and also as a defensive tactic. The company has always engaged in significant patent licensing (and litigation) activity in its core mobile email markets and could aim to increase its value and its ability to 'trade' IPR with rivals.

Nortel attorneys themselves seemed confused over which patents Ericsson was acquiring - one said 125 of the total portfolio of 5,500, another said 600. The Swedish firm will also license other Nortel IPR. Based on Nortel's estimate that the patents could command a 1% royalty on every relevant LTE device sale in the years to come, JPMorgan recently made the calculation that the patents could be worth between $950m and $2.9bn. And there is further IPR in other wireless technologies, plus Nortel apparently plans to keep back patents from the enterprise unit sale too.

The fact Nortel has separated patents out from the main LTE/CDMA agreement indicates that they will attract a better price on their own than bundled into an infrastructure deal, and many analysts believe that it the only motivation, and that the Canadian firm definitely intends to sell the portfolio. Others, though, think it has separated them in order to hold onto them as the core of a new company. CEO Mike Zafirovski has made no secret of his disappointment that shareholder value considerations have forced him to pursue break-up for Nortel rather than preserving the firm in a stripped-down version to emerge from bankruptcy protection. And various executives have continued to hint that the brand, and certain key assets, might survive in an independent rump firm.

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