The state-owned Finnish investment company Solidium Oy now holds more than five percent of Nokia’s shares worth one billion euros, roughly 26.5 billion crowns. “Nokia is one of the most important, if not the most important, corporations in Finland, and it is important to us to keep it Finnish,” says Antti Makinen, CEO of Solidium Oy. “From a European perspective, it is crucial that Europe owns 5G technology,” he explains.
The Finnish investment is a clear response to statements by US Secretary of Justice William Barr, who at the beginning of the year suggested that the US government try to acquire a stake in Nokia or its Swedish rival Ericsson, which also develops 5G networks. In addition, Nokia faced economic problems last year. The value of its shares fell by about a third, and according to Bloomberg, the owners even considered drastic changes in the company’s strategy.
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The current share purchase is intended, in the context of Makinen’s claim, to “show Barr and European partners that the situation is under control” and that the company now has a “stable domestic owner who can protect continuity, at least to some extent.” Solidium Oy does not yet plan to expand its stake in the corporation. It is already said to be a very risky investment.
Access to 5G networks has recently been the subject of sharp geopolitical controversy. Nokia and Ericsson are the strongest competitors in this field from the Chinese telecommunications corporation Huawei Technologies. Western countries, led by the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as India, are working to prevent China from becoming the dominant player in the industry.
Huawei, which has long been accused by the government of President Donald Trump of spying for Beijing, is therefore boycotted or outright banned in many of these countries.
