PE firm MatlinPatterson putting together bid for Nortel

Major Nortel creditor MatlinPatterson Global Advisors, which currently owns around 10 percent of Nortel's outstanding commercial paper, is in the midst of organizing a bid to buy Nortel and start a major reorganization of the company. Allan Sulkin, president of TEQConsult Group and a 30-year telecommunications industry veteran, thinks that if the MatlinPatterson is successful in putting together a winning bid for Nortel, MatlinPatterson likely will divest the Enterprise Solutions unit that Avaya and Siemens Enterprise have been eyeing [1].

Sulkin thinks the sale of that unit would provide some quick ROI for MatlinPatterson and would make sense for the resulting incarnation of Nortel, which he thinks lacks synergy between its enterprise and carrier divisions. Sulkin points to Silver Lake/TPG's purchase of Avaya as a similar scenario that might provide clues as to MatlinPatterson's plan of action, if it's successful in buying Nortel. 

For more:
- see Sulkin's full analysis of the Nortel situation at No Jitter here [2] 

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Competitors stalk Nortel VoIP assets [1]