Nokia: $7.2 billion in, $7.6 billion written off, fourteen months later
Microsoft wrote off nearly the entire Nokia phone acquisition a year after closing
The market's verdict: +3.0% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
Microsoft closed its roughly $7.2 billion purchase of Nokia's devices and services business on April 25, 2014, to go big in phones. Fourteen months later, on July 8, 2015, it announced a $7.6 billion impairment charge that wrote the whole thing down to almost nothing, along with up to 7,800 layoffs, primarily in the phone business. Windows Phone's global share was hovering around 2.7 percent at the time. Lumia owners were left holding hardware on a platform whose new owner had just priced its own commitment at zero. Writing off more than you paid takes a specific kind of talent, and a spreadsheet.
This one is officially acknowledged.
Links
↳ caused by Phone business restructuring (July 2015)
Timeline
- Jul 8, 2015 Stood by it Microsoft stood by it.