Article in Aamulehti about Jolla (finnish only)

The finnish text only mentions “jätti”, meaning left. That’s as clear as it gets.

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Please don’t mention the Vision and also in the same sentence the jolla phone… it’s just sad.

Other than that, let’s just wait for a statement from Jolla and hope for the best.

That would be the best scenario: a controlled juridical manoeuvre for adjusting the shareholding structure. I don’t expect it confessed though.
The worst? No manoeuvre, just plain financial struggles.
In either case, I don’t expect other than a stereotyped statement, they don’t have room for more than that.

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Yesterday, Finland’s prime newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat) did say in an article that Jolla has 4 million of operational cash available and 12,5 million of debt. Law firms state that without company restructuring, Jolla would declare bankruptcy.

Article also notes that another potential motivation for the reconstruction is to get rid of the Russian Government owned Rostelecom which owns 30% of the company.

Reconstruction application states that because of the war, Jolla was impacted heavily and was required to stop its business in Russia. Application also states that Russia ownership creates huge harm to the company currently, especially its partners in automotive industry see this ownership problematic. Jolla has stated that it has tried to get rid of the ownership for multiple years, but without results.

Article states that Rostelecom has agreed to sell its ownership in its financial statement. Rostelecom states that it demonstrates the willingness to do so by stepping down from the company’s board of directors.

According to the article, between years 2016 and 2021, 60-90% of the company’s revenue came from Russia. In addition, Jolla signed a contract with Hongkong based Chinastone in 2021 with plans to start business in China. According to Jolla, this contract will be a major revenue for it in upcoming years.

According to the article Jolla’s biggest debt collectors are Russia owned Votron, Finland’s national treasury, occupational pension company Elo and Finland’s Tax administration.

Edit: Chinastone deal might be reference to these two MWC2017 announcements. Chinastone Capital is only mentioned by name in the Finnish Announcement. Later in April 2017 this partnership was mentioned again in Jolla’s Press Releases

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So there we have it; the confirmation → trying to get out of the bear hug.

Let’s hope Jolla can get to a better future!

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Found public article rehashing the one you saw: https://www.aamulehti.fi/talous/art-2000009647640.html. It’s not cash, it’s assets. Jolla owe €140k debt to some lawyers and a bunch more money in taxes et al. Finland has a corporate protection process, thankfully.

The article implies Jolla still don’t have a buyer for Rostelcom’s shares.
There is more we don’t understand. Were Jolla voluntarily entering the restructuring process or did they have problems borrowing money? Were Rostelcom valuing their shares too high? If so, how much can shares for a company currently valued at (minus) -€8m be worth anyway? Can the restructuring process Rostelcom to accept a lower value?

This is Chinastone presumably: https://www.ltddir.com/companies/chinastone-hong-kong-holdings-limited/

Without that deal, I’d be very worried.


Tampere-based software company Jolla to be put into receivership - wants to get rid of Russian owners
Software company Jolla’s creditors are applying to have it put into receivership. The company would like to get rid of its Russian shareholders.

10.6. 15:27
SOFTWARE COMPANY Jolla is being sought for corporate restructuring. The company, which is mainly based in Tampere, is being put into administration by the law firms Castrén & Snellman and Borenius, which are among the company’s creditors.

According to documents submitted to the Pirkanmaa District Court in early June, Jolla owes the law firms a total of around €140 000. According to the restructuring application, the company’s main creditors are Votron, the State Treasury, the pension company Elo and the Tax Administration. The Helsingin Sanomat was the first to report on the case.

According to the application, Jolla is insolvent. Based on last year’s preliminary accounts, the company’s assets amount to approximately EUR 4.1 million and the liabilities to be taken into account in the restructuring application amount to EUR 12.5 million.

The law firms applying for the restructuring consider that without the restructuring Jolla would go bankrupt.

The company’s application for reorganisation reportedly also seeks a change in the ownership structure of the company. According to the application, Rostelecom, which is partly owned by the Russian State, currently indirectly holds about 30% of Jolla’s shares.

In 2018, Rostelecom announced that it had acquired a 75% stake in Open Mobile Platform and Votron, one of Jolla’s largest creditors, giving it a controlling stake in the operating system developer Sailfish Mobile OS RUS.

Jolla is best known as the developer of the Sailfish mobile operating system. According to the restructuring application, the company licensed the operating system to Rostelecom in 2016, and the Russian company has used the licence to develop an operating system called Aurora OS, which is used, for example, by the Russian state administration.

Following the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the company has said it wants to get rid of its Russian owners.

According to the restructuring application, Jolla ran into significant financial difficulties as a result of the war and was forced to close down its business in Russia.

According to the petition, Russian ownership has become an obstacle to the company’s business in other markets and its ownership structure is seen as problematic, particularly by its customers in the automotive industry. According to the application, this will significantly reduce the company’s turnover in the current year.

In the preliminary financial statements accompanying the application for reorganisation, Jolla states that it has been trying for several years without success to reduce or eliminate Russian ownership of the company.

Rostelecom has already announced in spring 2022 that it is ready to sell its stake in Jolla and has resigned from the board to demonstrate this.

According to the restructuring application, the only members of Jolla’s board are currently Sami Pienimäki, the company’s CEO, and Boris Krasnovsky, a Russian investor.

Jolla, founded in 2011 to develop the Meego operating system, which was rejected by NOKIA, also filed for corporate restructuring in late 2015.

Less than half a year later, it announced that it had received additional funding and cancelled its restructuring. The company admitted that part of the funding came from Russia, but declined to give details of the source of the funding.

According to the restructuring application, sales to Russia accounted for up to 60-90% of the company’s turnover between 2016 and 2021.

According to the application, Jolla signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Hong Kong-based Chinastone in 2021, and is targeting the Chinese market with the agreement.

According to the company, the agreement will generate significant licensing fees for it in the coming years.

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I do not understand what you want to say. Was the past so bad? Or your ideological colored glasses are two uncomfortable.
The biggest mistake is mixing politics with business.
And please keep in mind that democracy includes people with different opinions.
I did not see anything wrong cooperating with Russia or any other people.

It’s a shame that Europe actually gave up its sovereignty and does not invest in anything but BS ideology. I can tell you what happens when you bet on ideology. So … given the geopolitical frame I doubt that Jolla will make it, but I join your statement.
“Let’s hope Jolla can get to a better future!”

And please keep politics out of the forum with any qualifications.

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It seems to me the situation has turned in a way that doesnt benefit jolla anymore. Whatever you mean, or are trying to achieve by injecting politics in this thread; the past alone doesnt define the future, so please stay on topic and stop putting strange where there is none.

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Well, it will be too bad to see Jolla moving away from investors only for political reasons and drowning.
I wish Jolla could keep politics out too, but it seems impossible. I have not read recently any news on Jolla. This one here is making me think, that Jolla will not make it without a bigger market. Where is the market?
It would be too bad if we find out some day in near future that Jolla is giving up.

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Well there is a reason and that reason is quite simple. No one forces you to stop doing business with Russia, but one should always remember that every ruble payed as Russian taxes supports the war as it pays the bills. If you can live with this business mind as a company it’s fine, but for many customers it’s not.

So in my opinion it’s a valid point for the article @David posted that the links between Jolla and Russian stake holders are mentioned and that Jolla decided to cut it’s ties with them for morality and saying no to a European battlefield.

But back on topic that article made me :pray: for Jolla to survive these stormy times :cry:.

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That’s true, too.

But what I meant was that during the so called pandemic I had my own first hand experience with how having a SFOS phone (i.e. independent and not controlled by any corpos or governments) saved me from what millions of people had to go through - a literally humiliating surveillance via a mandatory covid app that every person under quarantine was required to install unless… he/she stated that he didn’t have a “compatible phone” (i.e. either iOS or Android).

The application was forcing people - at completely random times, even in the middle of the night - to take pictures of themselves with certain things in the background like e.g. refrigerator or washing machine - and instantly submit them (to God knows where) to prove that they stay at home. Then it turned out that all that data is administered by a small and so far unknown private company which was given the rights to store and process them for 6 years or so.

Whereas millions of people in my country had to go through that insanity and complete violence of their privacy, for me it was enough to state (by phone to a sanitary-epidemiological station clerk) that I have an “incompatible phone” based on an unsupported OS. And that was my only contact with them and nobody bothered me ever again, whereas those who refused to install the app or forgot to take and submit a photo in time had police visits and calls from “San-Epid”…

So long live SFOS and stay independent forever.

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And your politicians managed to convince you it was EU.

Fun fact, I’m also from EU and nothing like that was enforced (or even advised), this is the first time I’m hearing about it. And the same EU rules apply here as anywhere in EU.

So the only logical conclusion is it was your own government, not EU.

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This topic was started to share news related to the financial situation of Jolla.
I think it would be good to keep it for just this purpose .
It’s not about censorship or anything - just about focus .

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And what country was that?

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The discussion points out the importance to have alternatives to GA(FAM), while on the other hand if Jolla were supported by the EU as an alternative to Android/Apple, this will not be for free, and there also would be a Sailfish compatible Covid app… For such purposes it’s better to stay below the RADAR.

Actually, for the German implementation, there is a sailfish compatible Covid app. However, the use of the app never was compulsive for any OS…

I guess the moderators are on vacation.
grabs pop-corn

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Could you please move your discussion to a new thread with a matching title? There’s no need to hijack other topics.

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This topic is temporarily closed for at least 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.

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