As expected, Nokia"s stock price is soaring on the news that Microsoft will acquire much of the company for $7.17 billion, including its Lumia and Asha smartphone business. Nokia is currently trading at over 35 percent on the NASDAQ stock market today.
At the same time that Nokia"s stock value is going up, Microsoft is taking a hit as its shares are down over 5 percent. Basically, the Nokia buyout news removed any gains that Microsoft had generated in its stock price following the reveal less than two weeks ago that Microsoft"s current CEO Steve Ballmer will be retiring sometime in the next 12 months.
In addition to buying the smartphone hardware business, Microsoft will also acquire a long time license to Nokia"s patents and the use of its HERE mapping services. Nokia will still run a number of other business divisions once the deal is closed in the first quarter of 2014. Earlier this morning, Nokia held a press conference to offer up more details on the Microsoft deal and it was clear that Nokia officials felt that this was the best more for the company financially. At the same time the decision to sell off much of its divisions was a hard and emotional one to make.
Finland residents are also feeling the effects today, including Alexander Stubb, the country"s Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade. In a Twitter post this morning, he said:
For a lot of us Finns, including myself, #Nokia phones are part of what we grew up with. Many first reactions to the deal will be emotional.
— Alexander Stubb (@alexstubb) September 3, 2013
Stubb posted another message later stating that he felt that it was important that the jobs that are involved in Microsoft-Nokia acquisition "remain intact".
Source: NASDAQ | Image via Yahoo