Nokia seeking buyer for Vertu, says Financial Times

FT is citing an unnamed source today as saying that Nokia has retained Goldman Sachs as an advisor in a bid to sell its Vertu subsidiary, the UK-based purveyor of handmade ultra-luxury phones. Though you might think that the market for $10,000 handsets running Symbian is an extraordinarily small one, various reports over the past couple years have claimed that the division — which doesn't report its own revenue figures — is highly profitable, so it stands to reason that Nokia could end up fetching a strong price for it. Current rumors have a number of private equity firms looking at striking a deal, but the speculation is that luxury brands (some of which, like Prada and Armani, have taken to co-branding phones in recent years) could end up bidding as well.