Nokia Considering Selling Fancy-Pants Vertu Line

Reuters is reporting that Nokia is exploring selling the Vertu phone line to holding company Permira for $264.26 million, freeing itself from the difficult process of selling phones no one wants to people who should know better. Nokia called Vertu a “non-core asset.”

It’s odd that Vertu has been kept on life support for so long. Nokia has sold the underpowered, gem-encrusted phones since the turn of the century, depending on expensive cases to jack up the price on what amounts to a low-end Symbian phone in a pretty shell. Nokia has been trying to liquidate the company since 2011

Watchmaker Ulysses Nardin also sells a similar luxury phone, the Chairman, which is equally baffling.