Comment (1)Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co. KG has decided to challenge Avaya Inc. in the Sept. 11 auction of the enterprise business, the "All About Nortel" blog claims today.
Avaya kicked off the bankruptcy auction process in July by putting up a $475 million bid for the enterprise unit. (See Avaya Offers $475M for Nortel's Enterprise.)
About a week later, Gores Group LLC and Siemens indicated interest in filing a bid as a joint venture. (Gores bought a 51 percent stake in Siemens Enterprise Communications a year ago.)
But they also complained about the rules, filing an objection to the court. Avaya apparently was to be notified of competing bids two days before the auction -- a full day before everybody else. Gores and Siemens were also hoping to push the auction date back to Sept. 30, but a few days later, the court declared Sept. 11 as the date. (See Nortel's Enterprise Auction Set for 9/11.)
As All About Nortel points out, a Gores/Siemens win might be a better alternative for the enterprise group, because an Avaya win would be subject to antitrust scrutiny that could delay the purchase for months.
Nortel creditors are hoping for a repeat of the wireless assets auction, where the price tag grew to $1.13 billion from an initial $650 million offer. (See Ericsson Delivers Knockout Blow to NSN.)
Remaining pieces of Nortel include the VoIP equipment business -- which, speculation has it, could go for at least $800 million -- and the Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) business, which is considered valuable but has yet to draw a bid. See:
- Report: Stalking Horse Stampedes Toward Nortel's VoIP Biz
- Handicapping the Nortel VoIP Triple Crown
- Tellabs CEO: We Don't Dig MEN
- Is Ericsson the Hope for Nortel's MEN?
- MEN Watchers
- The Ciena Theory
