NSN confirms sale of BSS unit to Redknee

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) is to sell its Business Support Systems (BSS) business to Canadian billing and charging specialists Redknee for up to €40 million (US$52 million) – the latest in a long line of divestitures as NSN looks to slim down.

The vendor confirmed in September it was looking to offload the unit and said at the time it was in talks with several parties, thought to also include Ericsson and Amdocs.

The BSS unit supplies real-time charging, rating, policy, and customer care solutions and claims half of the top 100 global mobile operators as customers.

Under the terms of the deal, Redknee will acquire these customer contracts and other assets – and will inherit approximately 1,200 employees in Berlin, Bangalore and Wroclaw.

It will pay €15 million up front plus a maximum of €25 million over the next three years if certain targets are met. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2013.

The joint venture between Nokia and Siemens announced a significant restructuring in November 2011 in a bid to cut €1 billion in costs by the end of 2013. Measures included cutting 17,000 jobs, 23 per cent of the global workforce, and selling off various business units as the company moves to specialise in mobile broadband.

In the past year, NSN has sold its WiMAX unit to NewNet Communication Technologies, its Expedience proprietary fixed wireless broadband business to CN Tetragen, its fixed line broadband access unit to Adtran and microwave transport business to DragonWave.