Who owns the Vertu brand

The Vertu brand is widely known for its mobile phones, which differ not so much in technical specifications as in the quality of finish and exclusivity. This year, the company producing the “status” products has changed the owner, although nothing has changed for the Vertu user and buyer.

Until the middle of this year, Vertu belonged to the Finnish concern Nokia, which manufactures various telecommunications equipment, among which mobile phones occupy the lion's share. The luxury phone company was a separate division headquartered in England. It was founded 14 years ago by Frank Nuovo, the chief designer of the Nokia concern. However, in recent years, the Finnish concern, like many manufacturers of mobile communications, began to experience financial difficulties. They forced to seek additional funds even due to the massive reduction of workers at Nokia factories in different countries of the world. At the same time, the production of Vertu mobile phones continues to grow steadily, and this division of the Finnish concern is one of Nokia's most liquid assets.

In 2011, Nokia decided to improve its financial position by selling a larger stake to Vertu. The search and lengthy negotiations led to the conclusion of an agreement with the Swedish investment company EQT Partners AB in the summer of 2012. The official buyer of 90% of Vertu's assets was one of 14 EQT Partners funds with the name EQT VI. The Swedish concern was founded relatively recently - in 1994 - and is designed to invest a group of private investors in transactions to purchase or reprofile medium and large enterprises. Until now, transactions that were known were carried out in Europe, the USA and China, and the amounts that the Swedish fund invested in them on their own or with other partners were not lower than 50 million euros. As a rule, after the acquisition of a company, a representative of the new owner is included in its governing body, and changes necessary for the investor are introduced into the company's policies. It became known that EQT Partners plans to invest additional money in the development of new models of Vertu phones and the expansion of the retail sales network.