Nokia Siemens to buy Apertio

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia Siemens Networks NSN.UL (NSN) said on Wednesday it had agreed to buy Britain's Apertio Ltd for about 140 million euros ($205 million) and expects to close the deal in the first quarter of 2008.

Closely held Apertio, a provider of real-time subscriber data applications for telecom operators, employs 237 staff and had 2007 sales of around 28 million euros, NSN said in a statement.

Apertio would form a new business line within Nokia Siemens' Converged Core business unit, headed by current Apertio Chief Executive Paul Magelli, NSN said.

By 1123 GMT shares in Nokia were trading 1.4 percent lower at 26.14 euros while shares in Siemens were 0.2 percent down at 108.64 euros, compared with a 0.6 percent weaker DJ Stoxx European technology index .SX8P.

(Reporting by Sami Torma; editing by Sue Thomas)