Nortel Takes MEN Off the Block

Nortel (NT) has officially taken MEN off the block

An interesting comment from Nortel’s Joel Hackney about the how the company may take its Metro Ethernet network business off the sales block:

“We are reassessing that decision to potentially sell MEN,” he told NetworkWorld. “With the actions we’re doing on creditor protection, it gives us time to reassess that. The industry has clearly shown that the MEN business has some strong technologies.”

The decision to sell MEN has always struck me as act desperation given it’s probably Nortel’s crown jewel given it has growing sales and leading-edge technology that customers want to buy.

Before the bankruptcy filing, Nortel obviously believed it had to sell MEN to raise some much-needed cash but now that the bankruptcy filing could let Nortel out of some of it debt and pension liabilities, the need to sell MEN may have disappeared.

In the end, if Nortel does decide to keep MEN, it may be the best thing to happen in terms of the company’s long-term future.

Comments

[Red Green:]

The action is probably the right thing to do. But it sure doesn't make Mike Z. look like a decisive and shrewd leader. Nor the board of directors. In this case, no decision would have been better than the decision made. It clearly looked like desperation at the time. Now it looks like incompetence.

Feb 05 11:01 AM