Nokia said Friday it was in no rush to sell its mapping
services, increasing pressure on a crowd of tech and automobile
suitors to raise their bets for an asset seen as an essential piece
of technology for the advent of self-driving cars.
Nokia Chief Executive Rajeev Suri said the unit, called Here,
had attracted "significant interest" but appeared to be holding out
for higher bids.
"Let's give it more time," the Finnish
telecommunications-equipment giant's CEO was quoted as saying in an
interview with the trade magazine European Communications. "We may
not end up selling it if we don't get the right value. It has to be
a good competitive deal for Nokia and our shareholders."
Whoever gets their hands on Here could determine who drives the
next revolution in the automobile industry: the traditional car
makers or the newly founded technology giants. That is because
digital maps are the underlying navigation technology needed to
enable cars to become self-driving and Here is considered the most
advanced in this area.
Here's rivals includes TomTom NV, a Dutch company that makes
navigation and mapping products, and Google Inc., which has its own
Google Maps and other navigation products.
Nokia said it was conducting a strategic review of the unit on
April 15, on the day when it laid out plans to buy Alcatel-Lucent
SA. Since then, the Finnish company has been shopping it around to
potential investors. They have tendered bids of more than $3
billion, valuing Here at a hefty premium to the $2.2 billion that
Nokia recently said was the company's fair value.
Here, which has its main offices in Berlin and Chicago, was
created on the basis of Navteq, a U.S. company Nokia bought for
€5.7 billion ($6.3 billion) in 2008.
Among the group of private equity, technology and auto industry
investors that have placed bids for the company, two key groups
have emerged.
One is a consortium backed by German car makers BMW AG,
Volkswagen AG's Audi unit, and Daimler AG. They are teamed up with
the private equity investor General Atlantic, according to people
familiar with the situation.
The car makers placed a bid with Nokia last week, according to
two people familiar with the situation. These people said Nokia is
expected to make a decision on existing bids in mid June.
Uber, a ride-sharing service company, which has teamed up with
Baidu, China's largest search company, leads another group. Uber
has offered to pay about $3 billion for Here, according to people
familiar with the situation.
Analysts suggest that Uber could be interested in Here's mapping
service to create fleets of robot taxis. Uber recently acquired
deCarta, a location-based services company with its own mapping
technology. Uber is also looking into developing an autonomous
vehicle that it would use with its services.
Juhana Rossi in Helsinki contributed to this article.
Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com
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