Motorola Mobility, who recently reported a Q1 operating loss, might soon find a new headquarters in Chicago, as it bides its time while waiting to be acquired by Google, a deal expected to be completed by sometime toward the end of May. Motorola’s current home is located in Libertyville, IL, just north of downtown.
According to Chicago Business, Google has been in the market for about 500,000 square feet of office space in the Windy City, in plans to move Motorola Mobility, once (if) China approves it’s $12.5 billion acquisition of the company – money spent mostly on patents. Google has allegedly looked at top floors of the landmark Merchandise Mart in River North and a section of Fulton Market Cold Storage in the West Loop, to house roughly 3,000 employees that might possibly move from the Libertyville branch.
To better explain why Motorola Mobility, whose last big hit seemed to be the antiquated RAZR phone, might be worth $12.5 billion – Google is currently embroiled in a patent dispute with Oracle, over the use of Java APIs in the development of the Android operating system. The jury in that case just found Google partially guilty of violating Oracle’s copyrights, and the search giant doesn’t want to repeat this sort of legal scenario with Motorola. Google also might be looking to develop its own handsets some time in the future.
