Ciena serious about Nortel’s assets

Nortel is looking certain to sell another part of its business, according to a statement issued today by the troubled company.

It has confirmed it is in "advanced discussions" with Ciena, a US firm specialising in communications networking equipment, software and services, about the sale of all its global assets within its Optical Networking and Carrier Ethernet businesses.

The company has already sold off its CDMA and LTE assets to Ericsson for 688 million and its Enterprise Solutions business to Avaya for 900 million following the company's filing for bankruptcy back in January this year.

Although the companies are in advanced talks, an auction process will still have to go ahead, which may well involve late entry bidders interested in the assets.

Any deal would also have to get the go ahead from the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.