Nokia's self-scrutiny triggers stock value drop

The stock value of telecommunication giant Nokia declined heavily in the Helsinki stock exchange on Friday.

Finnish national broadcaster, Yle quoted analysts as saying that the decline was triggered by a report Nokia had sent to regulatory authorities explaining that it was scrutinizing some transactions in the takeover of Alcatel Lucent.

Late Thursday Nokia published the documentation it had sent to the U.S. market controller Securities and Exchange Commission. In the 200-page review, Nokia considered fines would be possible due to some wrong doings.

Nokia noted that "to ensure complete compliance", it was now scrutinizing certain transactions in the former Alcatel Lucent business. "Out of an abundance of caution and in the spirit of transparency, Nokia has contacted the relevant regulatory authority regarding this review," it stated.

Following the stock value decline by eight percent at the largest, Nokia gave on Friday afternoon (13:45 GMT) a comment "on market rumors".

Nokia underlined that the disclosure was not expected to have a "material impact on Nokia". Nokia said it hadn't seen "any evidence that would suggest that criminal penalties would apply", and that any other penalties that might apply would highly likely be "limited and immaterial".

Kimmo Stenwall, an analyst for the Finnish OP Group, told business daily Kauppalehti that the reaction of the stock market must have been a surprise to Nokia as well, otherwise the company would have issued a clarifying statement earlier.

In its communications, Nokia has not explained any details of what kind of matters it is investigating in its Alcatel-Lucent takeover. Nokia purchased Alcatel-Lucent in 2015 at the price of 15.6 billion euros.