Rich is reporting in his blog that Nortel will file for bankruptcy today, ending the run for one of Canada's biggest corporations and one of telecom's storied companies.
This marks quite the fall from grace for a company that was once one of the highest-fliers of the tech boom.
According to a story in today's Globe and Mail:
Nortel easily qualified as the country's largest company at the peak of the tech boom in 2000, with a $366-billion (Canadian) market capitalization and 95,000 employees.
While still North America's largest telecom equipment maker, Nortel's shares were worth a total of just $192-million yesterday, and the company has 26,000 staff after a bruising series of layoffs over the past eight years.
Nortel stock that soared to $1,231 at the peak of the tech bubble - reflecting a recent consolidation in shares - closed yesterday at 38.5 cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
You can expect the vultures will all be out today, slamming the company's management, pointing to the series of accounting scandals that ultimately doomed this company. You'll hear all about the acquisition of Bay Networks and how that never really turned into the perfect fit that had been hoped for. Yes folks, all the news will be bad, and the blame game will be blown out of proportion.
Nortel still has some great technology, and a customer base and service contracts that will have the scavengers salivating.
Unfortunately for the many great employees of the company the end of Nortel as we know it spells something far worse.
The news reports today speak of breaking up the company and selling off the pieces to competitors. In such cases, some employees will be fortunate enough to stay on, but for too many others it's a time of great uncertainty and worry.
I have been fortunate to work with many wonderful people who represented Nortel over the past 12 years, and I hope that they fare well in the wake of whatever goes down.
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