Nokia denied a CNBC report that the company was preparing to make an offer to acquire Juniper Networks for $16 billion.
Nokia noted that it doesn’t typically comment on market rumors, but said it was compelled to do so amid the report of M&A chatter, which caused shares of Nokia and Juniper to rise in after-hours trading. Nokia issued this statement:
“Nokia is not currently in talks with, nor is it preparing an offer for, Juniper Networks related to an acquisition of that company."
CNBC had reported that Nokia, which acquired Alcatel-Lucent in 2015 for $16.6 billion, would be looking to shore up in areas such as security and routing through an acquisition of Juniper, and would be paying a hefty premium for the company. Juniper’s market cap sits at about $11.1 billion.
Nokia recently scaled back its VR camera and software business, but likewise expanded into the cable access network sector following the acquisition of Gainspeed.
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