Reuters: ‘Lenovo Nears $3 Billion Deal to Buy Google’s Motorola Unit’

Nadia Damouni, reporting for Reuters:

China’s Lenovo Group is nearing a deal to buy Google Inc’s Motorola handset division for close to $3 billion, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday, buying its way into a heavily competitive U.S. handset market dominated by Apple Inc. […]

A sale of Motorola would mark the end of Google’s short-lived foray into making mobile devices and a pullback from its largest-ever acquisition. Google bought the U.S. cellphone giant in 2012 for $12.5 billion but has struggled to revamp the money-losing business.

I bet it would take longer to literally flush $9.5 billion in cash down a toilet than it took for Google to do so figuratively on the Motorola acquisition.

★ Wednesday, 29 January 2014