Finnish telecom giant Nokia has finalised the acquisition of its French rival Alcatel-Lucent.
Nokia had signed an agreement to buy Alcatel-Lucent in April 2015, but the company struggled to acquire the remaining shares to have full control of the French firm.
By January this year, the company held a controlling interest of about 76% in Alcatel-Lucent.
Nokia said the closing of the deal, marked by the purchase of all outstanding Alcatel-Lucent shares, allows it to start removing the complexity and costs of running two separate public firms.
The Finnish firm is already using extended scale and scope to new customers in new 
sectors to meet connectivity demands.
Nokia has been subject to a process of radical transformation in the last few years.
In 2013, the company acquired 50% of its network activities from Germany’s Siemens, and the following year it divested the devices & services and mapping businesses.
Nokia president and CEO Rajeev Suri said: “During the last three years Nokia has reinvented itself, emerging as a leader in the technologies connecting people and things with an unparalleled portfolio that better serves our traditional customers and, critically, new customers in the enterprise, Internet, utilities and transportation sectors.
“We are focused on playing a central role in a world where everyone and everything will be connected – the Programmable World.”
The acquisition expands Nokia’s portfolio with Alcatel-Lucent’s fixed, IP, optical and applications and analytics technologies.
Nokia expects the deal to achieve €1.2bn in annual cost savings in full-year 2018.
In 2016, Nokia acquired Withings and Gainspeed. It also announced a brand-licensing deal with HMD and expanded intellectual property cross-licensing agreement with Samsung.
