Libertyville, Ill. – Motorola Mobility scheduled Nov. 17 for a vote by
stockholders on its proposed acquisition by Google.
The transaction is still subject to regulatory approval
in the U.S., the European Union and other jurisdictions. When the merger
agreement was announced in August, Google said it expected the transaction to
close by the end of 2011 or early 2012.
Under the agreement, Motorola Mobility will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Google and be
run as a separate business. The purchase price is around $12.5 billion.
Google sought money-losing Motorola for the
handset maker’s thousands
of mobile-phone patents, which gives Google leverage to dissuade smartphone-OS
rivals Apple and Microsoft from lodging more patent-infringement actions
against Google’s Android-smartphone licensees, analysts said.
