• Nokia has agreed the sale of its Enterprise Campus Edge unit to private equity (PE) firm Aurelius
• The business has been a key part of the vendor’s growth in the private wireless networks sector
• Aurelius spies growth opportunities for the €170m turnover business

Having last year identified it as one of the business units that is surplus to requirements, Nokia has agreed the sale of its Enterprise Campus Edge (ECE) unit, a key part of its private wireless networking proposition, to investment firm Aurelius for an undisclosed sum, with the deal set to complete in the first half of 2027.  

The news will no doubt reignite debate about whether Nokia, which is now firmly focused on what it calls the ‘AI supercycle’, has been a bit hasty with its portfolio revamp.

Including ECE in the set of business units that were effectively put up for sale in late 2025 as part of its new strategic focus was regarded by many as a contentious, and even ill-judged, move by a number of industry commentators, given that Nokia had managed to build a commanding position in the private wireless networks sector with about 960 enterprise customers and a market share of about 50% (as of late last year, according to the GSA industry body). 

What’s more, that sector, driven mainly by demand from large enterprises for private 5G networks, is still reckoned to be growing: Research firm SNS Telecom & IT valued the 4G/5G private networks market at $4bn in 2025 and expects it to be worth $7.2bn by 2028; and Berg Insight valued the sector at $2.4bn in 2025 and expects it to grow to be worth $12bn in 2030. (There are some other forecasts that are way bigger but, whatever the numbers, they all predict meaningful growth.) 

However, Nokia decided it has bigger fish to fry and that the margins in the private wireless networking sector weren’t compelling enough to stick with its approach. As a result, it decided to offload ECE, which serves almost 900 customers in multiple vertical industries (manufacturing, mining, logistics, airports, ports, power generation and more) with its portfolio of industrial devices, on-premises operational technology (OT) and edge platform software, including its DAC (Digital Automation Cloud). 

What Nokia has been keen to stress since its somewhat fudged messaging of late last year is that it isn’t getting out of the private wireless networks market altogether as a result of sidelining ECE, pointing out to TelecomTV late last year that it “continues to sell radios for private wireless deployments together with Nokia and third-party core [platforms]” – see Nokia – ‘We’re not quitting the private 5G sector’. 

Konstanty Owczarek, Nokia’s chief corporate development officer, stated: “This planned transaction supports Nokia’s strategy to sharpen its portfolio and direct capital and resources to the areas where it can create the greatest long-term value. It also provides ECE with a strong foundation for its next growth phase as a standalone business.”

That foundation comes from private equity firm Aurelius, which focuses on investing in “global corporate carve-outs with improvement potential” and which describes the ECE acquisition as a “complex, global carve-out”. According to Aurelius, it is acquiring a business with annual revenues of more than €170m from its markets in Europe, North and South America, APAC and the Middle East, and approximately 1,000 staff worldwide, with key operations in Finland, Hungary, India and the US.

Fabian Steger, managing director of Aurelius Fund IV and V, stated: “ECE is a strong business with differentiated technology, a talented team, a global footprint and an
established customer base that includes many Fortune 500 enterprises across various industries. We see significant opportunities for ECE to build on its leading position in private 5G and industrial edge as a standalone business, expand its portfolio into emerging areas, such as AI-powered industrial automation, and help customers accelerate the digitalisation and automation of their operations.”

The other three Nokia units identified last year as not being “core to the future of the company’s strategy” are: Fixed wireless access (FWA) CPE, which, following an initial announcement in April this year, has recently been offloaded to San Diego-based wireless broadband technology vendor Inseego; Site Implementation and Outside Plant; and Microwave Radio. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV