Real estate investment firm is in talks with struggling Nokia which plans of selling its head office building. The real estate investment firm is about buy the Nokia building for a sum of Rs.1218-Crore.

Real estate investment firm Exilion has hit the top headings as it is about to purchase Nokia head building at Espoo, in Finland. Nokia, one of the leading handset makers, said that the group is in talks with real estate investment firm Exilion over their selling of its head office building in Espoo.

The real estate investment firm is said to purchase the Nokia Head Building for nearly 170 million Euros (about Rs.1218-Crore). Nokia’s divesting of real estate assets is part of their plan to cut costs.

Nokia stated that the company will be divesting the Nokia Head Building on long-term lease agreement. Finland-based real estate investment firm will lease back the building to Nokia. The company officials of Nokia said that the sale will be completed by the end of this year.

Nokia CFO Timo Ihamuotila told the media that having real estate asset is not a concern for them. He added that it is not part of the company’s core business. Talking about their plan to divest real estate assets, he said that real estate assets are non-core assets for Nokia.

Since 1997 Nokia has been functioning in this building. The Nokia Building has 48,000 sq. meter office space. Architect Pekka Helin designed the building which is located in Keilaniemi in Espoo.

Mr. Ihamuotila added that the Nokia group is content over the outcome. Though the building is sold, Nokia will continue operating in this building on a long- term contract basis.

The Finnish handset making company has been facing strong rivalry from other smartphone firms like Samsung and Apple. Nokia lost its prominence to Samsung. Yet it was, in a hostile way, introducing a number of products grounded on Microsoft’s Windows platform along with other operational systems like Belle.

Nokia had announced the closing of its facilities in Ulm (Germany) and Burnaby (Canada) as part of their reshuffling procedure. Nokia had also sold its luxury brand Vertu to EQT, a private equity firm.

The Nokia statements revealed the company’s plan to reduce 10,000 jobs globally by the end of 2013. This reducing of job opportunities also is looked as a part of their restructuring procedure. However the experts point to the reduced sale of Nokia products as a reason for this real estate transaction.