Report: Nortel CEO on his way out

Nortel Networks' CEO Mike Zafirovski will leave the troubled provider of telecommunications equipment in the coming weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing anonymous sources.

Zafirovski, who previously was president and chief operating officer of Motorola, became Nortel Networks' CEO in November 2005 and tried to turn around the struggling Canadian company. However, Nortel Networks ended up seeking bankruptcy protection in January of this year and is now selling its assets to pay creditors.

Last week, Nortel got the green light from U.S. and Canadian courts to sell its enterprise business to Avaya or at auction next month.

In late July, Sweden's LM Ericsson won the bidding war over Nortel Networks' wireless assets, agreeing to pay US$1.13 billion for the company's CDMA business and LTE Access technology.

In June, Nortel Networks accepted a $650 million offer from Nokia Siemens Networks for its CDMA and LTE assets. That offer set the stage for Private equity firm MatlinPatterson to jump in with a counter offer of $725 million for the wireless assets. Research in Motion also made an offer for the assets but was barred from the sale after a bidding procedure dispute with Nortel.