Nortel continues to deny that its decision to hold onto its assets crushed their value and resulted in a lowball bid for its wireless segment. An initial bid for Nortel’s CDMA assets and LTE research unit netted only $650 million.

“We continued until very recently to be able to restructure and emerge as a more profitable company,” says Nortel spokesman Richard Lowe, who has worked at the company for 29 years. “The last thing you want to do is give up the ghost and go shop all the assets.”

The book value of Nortel’s assets crumbled under the weight of bankruptcy proceedings, sparking criticism that the company should have sold them before they began to lose significant value.

“Hindsight is 20/20 but if you decide to embark on that path you should get a read on the marketplace and see how much those businesses could fetch,” says analyst Ron Gruia with Frost & Sullivan. “Obviously, if you write the post mortem on Nortel you should include its very ineffective board of directors.”

Gruia cites the initial bid for the company’s CDMA assets and LTE research unit as an example of what he sees as the company’s short-sighted strategy.

On Friday, Nortel announced it had entered into an agreement with Nokia Siemens Networks to sell its CDMA assets and LTE research unit for $650 million. Though Lowe called the bid “a fair value for the assets we had on the table”, the unit had been earning about $700 million a year and the offer is widely considered to be a lowball figure.

Nokia Siemens is likely to quickly recoup their investment, and the deal will boost its North American market share to 30 percent thanks to the carriers that come along with the sale, including Verizon, Sprint and U.S. Cellular.

However, the final sale price could be higher. The agreement includes a ‘stalking horse’ provision that allows other companies to bid on the assets after Nokia Siemens’ initial offer. Though Lowe declined to comment on other possible bidders, he said he was “optimistic” that there would be other bids on the table.

Gruia does not share Lowe’s optimism and expects more lowball bids to follow because of the assets’ deteriorated value. “Enterprise networks may be the next shoe to fall in the Nortel story. A year ago it might have fetched up to a billion dollars. Now I don’t know if they could even get $500 million for the division,” he says. “If you wait too long, things don’t always work in your favor.”

There are defenders of Nortel’s strategy. ABI Research analyst Nadine Manjaro says Nortel’s strong cash position and lengthy experience in the business led them to see holding on to their assets as a logical choice. “I don’t think they waited too long,” says Manjaro.

However, she concedes that Nokia Siemens is getting Nortel’s wireless assets at a discount. “I think the $650 million is low compared to actual value,” she says.

It will be some time before the industry can see what comes of the Nortel saga. The company still has yet to announce bidders for its remaining segments, which are comprised of its enterprise services, GSM, carrier VoIP, legacy wireline, metro Ethernet, fiber optics and a joint venture with LG.  According to U.S. bankruptcy laws, these too will be sold via a stalking horse agreement.

Nortel as a company is finished, its shares have been delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange and shareholders’ investments are for naught. Nortel’s last task is to auction off its remaining assets: enterprise, GSM, carrier VoIP, legacy wireline, metro Ethernet, fiber optics and a joint venture with LG