Hakan Uzan is an exiled Turkish businessman who made a questionable investment. The man acquired Vertu which is a UK based cellular manufacturer. The company manufactures obscenely garnish and lavish handsets which are very tacky. Uzan, could have bought around 10,000 average price Vertu handsets with the money he paid to buy the company. We’re going to label this as a troublesome investment. Being a member of the secretive Turkish business family, he has spent $61 million to acquire the company.
Looking a bit deeper, this is the third time the company has been bought ever since the spun off from Nokia in 2012. Recently, it was owned by Godin Holdings, who is based in China. The company was bought at the end of 2015. A Vertu handset sells for an average amount of $6000 which is why it is not hard to see why companies have been passing it around. The phones look like diamond encrusted hot potatoes, to be honest. The pricing is exactly the sort of factor one keeps an estimate of how much money the other person has to burn. However, appearances can be deceptive because there isn’t much on the inside of the phone to offer to the user.
When viewing it from a hardware perspective we see that the devices are last generation phones just wrapped in fancy material and logos. It also comes with “Concierge” customer support services. This is exactly a big part of as to why the company posted a £53 million loss on sales of £110 million back in 2014. 2014 is the only time the company went public with its data.
Uzan responded to the investment with, “Vertu is a powerful brand with an acknowledged market niche. I look forward to working with the team and providing the investment to enable Vertu to realize its full potential.”
Political dimensions of this acquisition are even more compelling. If you don’t know then Uzan has had an embattled relationship with former Vertu owner, Nokia. The Turkish business family was hit by lawsuits from the smartphone giant, after it took loans to launch Telsim-which is a Turkish carrier.
Read: Nokia is back into the market with Nokia P1 Android smartphone
The business family was labeled a fraud and Nokia plus Motorola scored billions of dollars over unpaid loans. The downward spiral of the family also included a fair fight with Donald Trump over apartments in Trump Tower. We’re very intrigued to see how this venture goes for Uzan and his family.
Image via The Inquisitr
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