Google to buy Motorola for €8.7bn
The search engine group is to pay $12.5bn forMotorola Mobility in a deal which gives it direct control over one of the largest manufacturers of mobile phones running Android, Google’s own operating system. The price, a 63% premium to the value of MotorolaMobility at the end of last week, makes the deal Google’s largest. It was hailed by chief executive Larry Page as a “natural fit”. Motorola Mobility is already a partner of Google, but will remain as a separate business and licensee of Android, which will also remain an open platform.
Shares in MotorolaMobility soared on news of the deal, which comes just eight months after the former Motorola split into two companies — Mobility, the handset company, and Solutions, which supplies wireless services, and which is not part of yesterday’s deal.
