Baferton Ltd, a Cyprus-registered vehicle funded by Hakan Uzan has purchased luxury phone maker, Vertu, for £50 million.
Vertu was created by Nokia in the late 1990s to cater for people with expensive tastes. The handmade phones were made from expensive materials including sapphire screens, ostrich leather casing and titanium frames.
In 2012, Nokia sold the business to Swedish private equity group, EQT VI, for around £175 million. EQT then sold to Hong Kong-based fund Godin Holdings for an undisclosed amount in 2015
Hong Kong-based Godin Holdings owned Vertu for less than 18 months.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Uzan is part of one of Turkey’s most controversial families and was once found in contempt of court in Britain. He has tangled in court with the current President of the United States and Nokia.
In the 1990s the Uzan family borrowed money from Nokia and Motorola to help set up a mobile operator, Telsim, which went onto form the basis of Vodafone’s Turkish business.
Telsim hit financial trouble in the dotcom crash and defaulted on the loans, triggering claims that the family had siphoned off cash to pay for private jets and international properties. New York courts awarded multibillion-dollar damages to Nokia and Motorola over a decade ago but the Uzans continue to dispute the allegations.
Despite the issues surrounding the new owners, Vertu CEO Gordon Watson had this to say to Digital Trends in an emailed statement: “The investment from Baferton will allow us to accelerate our launch plans for this year, which includes a complete refresh of our Signature collection and a new range of smartphones as well as an enhanced services proposition. Looking further ahead we will be in a position to fully realize our product roadmap for 2018 as well as more product diversification.”
