Nortel Is On the Hunt

Red Herring declares: “Nortel Goes Shopping”, which got me excited amid the possibility that for all the talk about making an acquisition, Nortel (NT) had actually gone and bought something.

Lo and behold, it’s still more talk. This time, it’s chief technology officer John Roese talking about how Nortel is looking at acquisitions in the optical, business Wi-Fi, WiMAX, 4G, and unified communications sectors.

“Anything that moves the industry toward simplified wireline transport and reduces cost while increasing performance is fair game for Nortel,” he told Red Herring. “That could mean acquisitions, minority investments, partnership, or even internal activity.”

Red Herring brought up an interesting fact: Nortel bought nine companies in 2000 at the height of the telecom boom when start-ups such as Qtera were snapped up for $3.25-billion. In 2005, Nortel made two acquisitions (PEC Solutions and Tasman Networks), while it was a seller last year (the UMTS business).

You can find a list of Nortel’s acquisitions since 1997 here.