Ah, the colorful world of stock trading! Just as expected, Nokia’s share prices have started to soar on the news that Microsoft will acquire the devices and services unit of the company for $7.17 billion.
The deal does not close for another 6 to 9 months, but investors seem to be pretty confident about how things are shaping up — Nokia stock rose by over 35 percent on the NASDAQ stock market today. But while Nokia share prices are going up, Microsoft stock took a bit of a hit.
Shares of the technology titan went down by slightly over 5 percent.
In other words, the Nokia buyout news removed any gains that Microsoft had generated in its stock price Steve Ballmer made his retirement official. The outgoing CEO of the Redmond Empire announced two weeks ago that he would be retiring sometimes within the next 12 months.
Earlier today Nokia held a press conference to offer more details on the Microsoft deal.
The Finnish telecom titan says that it will still run a number of business divisions after the deal is closed in the first quarter of 2014. But it decided to give up its smartphone hardware business, in what the company believes was the best move for the iconic company financially.
Along with the handset business, Microsoft will also acquire a long term license to Nokia’s patents, along with the use of the company’s HERE mapping services.
