Nokia (NOK) no Longer Planning to Acquire Alcatel-Lucent (ALU)
The WSJ reported today that Nokia's decision was made after evaluating options related to Alcatel's business lines. Nokia was looking at Alcatel's IP-routing and wireless assets would be a fit for Nokia's NSN unit.
Formal talks will not be pursued.
The WSJ noted that an agreement between the two companies would be complex. NSN already exited a portion of areas in which Alcatel still operates, like optical networking. In addition, a slew of decent quarterly results has made Alcatel a pricier purchase now.
None of this hints that the two companies couldn't enter some sort of strategic collaboration, though that possibility hasn't been extensively speculated.
Shares of Nokia are lower early, while Alcatel is up over 1 percent.