Nokia Sells Headquarters for $220 Million, Will Stay Put
By Brandon Russell | 3
It hasn’t exactly been a groundbreaking year for Nokia, the kind of year it hoped to have as it hunkered down with Microsoft’s burgeoning mobile OS. Despite offering the excellent Lumia 920, and an entirely new maps platform called Here, the company’s $754 million operating loss reported back in October is not easy to recover from. That’s a lot of dough.
So to ease the pain, to make a dent going into next year, Nokia is selling its headquarters in Espoo, Finland. But don’t worry, the company isn’t actually moving away from the premises. Instead, Nokia is merely going to become a tenant of the building, rather than acting as the outright owner. For its troubles, the company will get $220 million in return.
“Owning real estate is not part of Nokia’s core business and when good opportunities arise we are willing to exit these type of non-core assets,” said Nokia CFO Timo Ihamuotila. “We are naturally continuing to operate in our head office building on a long-term basis.”
Let’s hope Nokia’s landlord is actually a Lumia fan, and not an iPhone or Android owner. Otherwise, that’ll surely make for some awkward negotiating.
[via TheVerge]
