Tragedies end badly. Nokia makes the point with a vengeance. The mobile phone maker once carried a market capitalisation of over €200bn. Now it proposes to flog off its core mobile devices business (together with a long-term patent licence) to Microsoft – on which it has become increasingly dependent – for €5.4bn. That caused Nokia shares to jump, but still leaves the Finnish group’s market price tag at about €15bn (and enterprise value even lower). This is value destruction of a rare order, and it cannot be blamed solely on former management’s misjudgments about smartphone developments. The €200bn market cap dates to 2001, but in 2008 Nokia was still valued at over €100bn. In the three years since former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop took Nokia’s helm, the group’s stock market worth has halved.

Some investors may want to put history behind them and simply ask whether the Microsoft deal is a fair one. Not easy. The US group is paying €3.8bn – well below its net operating cash flow last quarter – for a lossmaking division that might make €11bn in sales this year. Losses have been reducing – they were €75m in the first half – but are likely to persist this year and next at least. Some market analyses attach no value at all to the business. And Mr Elop, who seems to have started discussing the deal with Microsoft before cementing the buyout of Siemens’ stake in Nokia Siemens Networks, has at least left shareholders with a telecoms equipment business to fall back on, plus a cash balance of about €8bn.