Finnish billionaire Siilasmaa celebrates Nokia turnround

It is not just Nokia that is celebrating a turnround with its takeover bid for Alcatel-Lucent. Its chairman is too.

Risto Siilasmaa was bruised by the fallout from the Finnish group's last big deal: the sale of its mobile phone division to Microsoft and the resulting €24.2m pay-off to Nokia's former chief executive, Stephen Elop.

Mr Siilasmaa, Finland's first billionaire and once its richest man, was criticised for his handling of the affair after he admitted giving misleading information about the Mr Elop's package.

Many in Finland also questioned the wisdom of selling the country's former corporate jewel. At the time, Mr Siilasmaa spoke of conflicting emotions while leading the negotiations with Microsoft. "The whole process has been a bipolar one. Emotions on the one hand, and rationality and logic on the other," he said.

But his position has been strongly vindicated since as Nokia's ex-handset division has continued to struggle while its rump telecoms equipment business has performed strongly.

The 49-year-old, who will remain chairman after the proposed acquisition, is well-known in Finland for founding F-Secure, a computer security company.

Some international investors were wary of his choice as chairman, believing he was chosen for being Finnish to balance out the Canadian Mr Elop. But he won over many. "He isn't a brash tech guy, like you see in the US, but he seems to have got a lot of things right at Nokia so far," says one Nordic investor.

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