Tuesday, March 23, 2004

WSJ.com - Ericsson Confirms Plans To Raise Symbian Stake

WSJ.com - Ericsson Confirms Plans To Raise Symbian Stake "Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson Monday confirmed that it intends to increase its stake in Symbian PLC to prevent rival Nokia Corp. from gaining a majority stake in the maker of smart-phone software.
Symbian was set up by its shareholders to be an independent provider of software for mobile phones. Nokia said in January that it will buy a 31.1% in Symbian from Psion PLC in a move that would lift Nokia's stake to 63.3% unless other shareholders use their pre-emption rights. Under a shareholders pact, all the shareholders have pre-emptive rights to buy their pro rata share of any other shareholder's stake that is put up for sale.
Ericsson Chief Executive Carl-Henric Svanberg was quoted in the Financial Times Monday as saying Nokia must get below 50%, "otherwise [Symbian] becomes a Nokia platform."

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