Usually when we get news about Vertu, it’s about a pricey new Android phone that the company has released. Things are a bit different today.
Vertu has been purchased by Hakan Uzan, a Turkish businessman. It’s said that Uzan has paid around £50 million, or around $61.1 million USD, for the luxury smartphone brand.
“Vertu is a powerful brand with an acknowledged market niche,” Uzan’s spokesman told The Telegraph. “I look forward to working with the team and providing the investment to enable Vertu to realize its full potential.”
The Vertu brand has had an interesting life lately. Originally founded in 1998 by Nokia, Vertu was sold to private equity firm EQT for around £175 million in 2012. The brand was then sold to Hong Kong’s Godin Holdings in 2015, and now that group has sold Vertu to Uzan.
Interestingly, Uzan’s family has a history with Nokia. The Uzan family borrowed money from Nokia and Motorola in the 1990s to launch a mobile operator named Telsim, and then years later, the family was accused of fraud by Nokia and Motorola and the courts awarded those two companies billions in damages.
While most of us have never even seen a Vertu in real life, let alone actually used one, it’ll be interesting to see what Uzan does with Vertu. The Vertu name has been around the smartphone world for years, but it’s had a bit of a rough time lately, with Vertu losing £53 million for Godin Holdings in 2014. Now we see if Uzan can improve Vertu’s situation.
