Nokia reportedly has a strategic rethink

Finnish kit vendor Nokia is mulling new ways of improving its bottom line according to a report.

Bloomberg spoke to those ‘people familiar with the matter’ who reckon Nokia is having to explore strategic options in an apparent bid to improve its margins. It’s all a bit vague and generic at this stage, with everything from balance-sheet adjustments to full-blown mergers and acquisitions on the table.

Nokia’s M&A options would appear to be limited. The only company it could realistically merge with is Ericsson, but the obstacles to such a move are so great and numerous that it feels absurd to even contemplate it. Yes, there would be plenty of those cherished synergies but even if Ericsson fancied the idea, surely regulators would have none of it, especially with the Huawei situation developing as it has.

Flogging some non-core business units would raise a few euros, but Nokia has already done a fair bit of that, so there may not be a lot of fat left to trim. Creative accounting might flatter the numbers for a couple of quarters, but would do nothing to address the underlying causes of the situation that has brought about this rethink.

This feels like a trial balloon exercise from Nokia, designed to see what the market thinks of such an idea. They answer seems to be indifference, as Nokia’s share price hasn’t really reacted at all. Alternatively it could be a bit of light flirting with the US state, which has previously mulled the prospect of investing in Nokia and Ericsson in the name of securing its telecoms infrastructure supply.