After selling its handset business to Microsoft, Nokia begins new era appointing Rajeev Suri as the chief executive officer. Besides, the Finnish company reiterated its commitment to return $3 billion to the shareholders. The corporation is now focused on 3 major business divisions – the networking and telecommunications equipment company Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN), the geo-location mapping service Here, and on developing and licensing advanced technologies.
Rajeev Suri has been at the helm of the largest of the above-mentioned divisions - Nokia Solutions and Networks (former Nokia Siemens Networks) since October 2009. In the first quarter of 2014, the company contributed 2.3 billion euros in sales or 86% of revenues, excluding the smartphone business. Suri, who has been working for Nokia since 1995, will officially become CEO on May 1, 2014. Being restructured at the moment, Nokia is trying to keep the investors with the help of capital structure organization program. The program suggests the company will recommence ordinary dividend payments with 800 million euros (0.11 euros per share) in total for 2013 and 2014.
Additionally a special dividend of 0.26 euros apiece representing 1 billion euro is planned for 2014. Moreover, Nokia is going to launch a 1.25 billion share repurchase program and reduce debt of around 2 billion euros by the end of Q2 2016.
As of late March 2014, Nokia’s net cash reached 2.1 billion euros. In case the deal with Microsoft was completed by the end of the quarter, not on April 25, the Finnish corporation would gain 7.1 billion euros.
According to the financial report, Nokia’s profit posted 110 million euros in the first three months of 2014. The loss from discontinued operations, including smartphone production, for the same period came in at 339 million. Thus, the net loss of Nokia in Q1 is estimated at 229 million euros versus a 339 million loss previously. Nokia’s revenue fell 15% to 2.7 billion euros. However, analysts were less upbeat, Reuters said. The networking equipment sales brought in 2.3 billion, while the Here maps and technologies licensing generated 209 million and 131 million respectively.
