Thaindian News

Toronto, Sep 23 (IANS) The bankrupt Nortel has taken yet another step closer to fading into history by announcing auction of its carrier networks business.
The decision was announced Monday.

The 124-year-old Canadian icon, which has been operating under bankruptcy protection in Canada and the US since January after suffering losses of $5 billion last year, has already auctioned its wireless business and the enterprise division.

Nortel, once the biggest telephone equipment maker in the world, is selling its businesses bit by bit to pay off its debtors.

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

Earlier this month, the Toronto-based company sold its enterprise division to America’s Avaya Inc. for $900 million.

Though no auction date has been announced, the carrier business going under the hammer includes software that support the transfer of data over existing wireless networks and the next-generation wireless communications technology.

Nortel said it will grant the purchaser a non-exclusive licence of relevant patent intellectual property.

Like the previous two auctions, this auction will also be court-supervised as Nortel is under court-granted bankruptcy protection.

With the third auction, Nortel will be a step closer to fading into history.

At its height, this Canadian icon employed more than 90,000 people worldwide and accounted for more than a third of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Its downward spiral began with the dotcom bust of 2000, with its market capitalisation plummeting from almost $400 billion just before the dotcom bust in September 2000 to $5 billion within two years. Its stock sank from $124 to $0.47.

An accounting scandal of 2004 further weakened the telecom giant.

In 2006, Nortel had to pay $2.5 billion to settle shareholder class actions.

The global economic crisis last year was the last straw for Nortel.