Philips To Retain 10 % Stake In Telecom Arm

Philips has already decided to sell off its private mobile radio division to Simoco International.

The newly formed company, Simoco International promoted by UK-based venture capital firm, CINVen, has acquired Philips' mobile radio activities in UK, Australia and France.

Simoco International will have an international structure comprising of Simoco Europe, Simoco Asia Pacific and Simoco India. Headquartered in Cambridge, UK it will focus on the wireless communication business.

The sell-off of its private mobile radio (PMR) activity forms part of Philips' worldwide strategy to move out of the professional communication systems and concentrate on consumer electronics.

CINVen is Europe's second largest venture capitalist. It manages funds worth 1 billion pounds and has nearly 2 million pounds to invest each year.

 

PTIL has two divisions: PMR (portable and handheld) and Pagers (numeric and alphanumeric). Following the sell out of the PMR division, the pager division will be merged into the consumer electronics arm of Philips India.

The entire process is expected to take early six months.