Siemens denies report it is mulling buying Nortel

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German engineering conglomerate Siemens denied a newspaper report on Friday that it was considering buying Canadian telecoms equipment firm Nortel Networks.

"A takeover of Nortel is not an issue," a Siemens spokesman said, after German daily Die Welt said Siemens's telecoms unit Com was considering a large acquisition and had held talks with Nortel.

Com, its biggest unit, made a loss of 70 million euros (US$84 million) in the quarter to end-June on sales of 3.335 billion euros. It is scaling down staff at the unit, which has struggled to sell new, internet-based equipment to large companies.

Die Welt also reported that Siemens expected to sell Dematic, the loss-making part of its automation unit Logistics and Assembly (L&A), by the end of the year.

Siemens said in August it was dissolving L&A and carving out Dematic, which makes logistics hardware and software mainly for smaller companies, into a separate legal entity.

Die Welt, citing a person familiar with the matter, said negotiations were already in progress with a potential buyer. It said a financial services provider could buy the business.

A spokesman for Siemens L&A said a team was still working on the carve-out, and aimed for Dematic GmbH to be an independent entity by the end of the year, at least in Germany.

He declined to comment directly on the report, referring to Siemens's earlier statement that Dematic would be open for possible partnerships.