Balsillie: “RIM remains extremely interested in acquiring Nortel assets”

A month ago Nokia Siemens made an announcement that they’ve reached a $650 million deal with Nortel Networks to acquire all their wireless assets.

Jim Balsillie, RIM’s co-CEO, issued a press release last night that stated RIM is being shut out of any discussions. and that they are willing to dish out around $1.1-billion (U.S.) for the Nortel assets. Balsillie stated “RIM remains extremely interested in acquiring Nortel assets through a Canadian ownership solution that would serve the dual purpose of keeping key wireless technologies in Canada and extending RIM’s leadership in the research, development and distribution of leading-edge wireless solutions. But RIM has found itself blocked at every turn”.

Responding to the RIM press release, Nortel issued a statement of their own by stating on June 30th the courts established bidding procedures and “RIM did not object to the approval of these procedures”, and it was not until July 15th that RIM submitted a letter requesting to be a qualified bidder. “Since that time, Nortel has diligently attempted to work with RIM on acceptable confidentiality terms relating to Nortel’s valuable intellectual property assets, but RIM refused to comply with the court-approved procedures.”

Since Nortel is in bankruptcy and the courts did set up a bidding process, all bids must be received by 4:00 p.m. today and the auction will take place this Friday at 9:30 a.m. in New York.

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