SYMBIAN PARTNERS SPLIT STAKE

London-based mobile operating system firm Symbian Software announced last week that founding shareholder Psion's 31.1% equity stake in the company has been divided among the six remaining equity holders, including Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Panasonic, Siemens and SonyEricsson.

The redistribution of Psion's stake leaves Nokia with 47.9% equity, Ericsson with 15.6%, SonyEricsson with 13.1%, Panasonic with 10.5%, Siemens with 8.4% and Samsung with 4.5%. The change in ownership configuration comes five months after Psion approached Nokia about selling off its entire interest. Though most industry watchers perceived that Nokia was making an aggressive bid for 63% ownership and decisive control of Symbian, Peter Bancroft, vice president of market communications at Symbian, claimed that wasn't the case.

“The case isn't what people have thought,” he said. “Nokia said they would underwrite a bid, but welcomed other shareholders to join in.” The result is that Nokia and other shareholders are dividing Psion's stake in a way that leaves Nokia just short of 50% ownership. Nokia officials said during a press conference last week that they support the ownership reconfiguration, though several analysts continued to insist the new deal was an antidote to what had been a power play by Nokia.

Bancroft said he was not aware of a concerted effort by the partners to keep any single partner from gaining majority control of Symbian. He added that Symbian was more focused on pushing market adoption of its system than influencing a cooperative attitude among its owners.

The partners also are investing about $90 million of new money in Symbian that will be used to increase the company workforce from 900 to 1200 employees and fund product developments that will put its OS in lower-cost phones and support new services. The partners also said they are searching for a new independent, non-executive chairman to lead the Symbian board of directors.