Garmin may be buying Navigon as a defense against the pressure on GPS devices from smartphones, sources divulged in a German leak on Friday. The deal would show Garmin taking advantage of Navigon’s battering in the mapping business to pay something in the tens of millions of euros, considerably lower than what it would have been worth a few years ago. A deal could be completed as soon as June, the Financial Times Deutschland informants said.
General Atlantic Partners, a capital firm that has a 90 percent stake in Navigon, is unlikely to get any significant return on its original investment from 2005, according to the tip.
Neither of the companies was willing to comment.
