Nokia has launched a public exchange offer for its proposed acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent.
Earlier this year, the European Commission and the US Department of Justice approved the €15.6bn transaction, which is expected to close in the first half of 2016.
The public exchange offer includes two separate offers, the French offer and the US offer, which feature similar financial terms.
Nokia president and CEO Rajeev Suri said: "With the launch of this public exchange offer, we are entering the final phase of our proposed acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in a position of strength and are on track to be ready to operate as one company.
"A successful public exchange offer would mark the completion of Nokia’s transformation to create a new leader in next generation technology and services for an IP connected world."
The acquisition is expected to overshadow Ericsson AB and Huawei Technologies in wireless-infrastructure revenue.
Suri told Reuters in an interview that the agreement matches with a new industry investment cycle set to start in 2016 to develop the next generation of 5G networks, which are anticipated to go mainstream around 2020.
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Alcatel-Lucent invests about €4.7bn on research and development, with Nokia spending less than half of the amount.
Suri said: "We have more scale to invest in 5G than we would had alone."
