Several major news agencies today report that Mike Zafirovski (pictured, left), chief executive of troubled Canadian networking vendor Nortel Networks, will soon leave the company. Wall Street Journal says Zafirovski will leave “within weeks” whilst the Financial Times claims he is “close to announcing his departure.” Zafirovski has been at the helm since late 2005, when he was brought in to turnaround the company after it suffered a major accounting scandal. Despite making huge cost cuts, critics argue that Zafirovski failed to curb multi-billion dollar losses, resulting in the need to seek bankruptcy protection last January.

Nortel, which entered bankruptcy proceedings with more than US$2 billion in cash, initially planned to restructure and emerge as a viable company but decided it could make more money for creditors by selling its assets in bankruptcy. Last month it was announced that – subject to regulatory approval – Ericsson will buy its CDMA and LTE access assets for US$1.13 billion. It has also accepted a so-called stalking-horse bid of US$475 million for its enterprise division from Avaya, which will lead to a subsequent auction to ensure the highest price. Wall Street Journal notes that Zafirovski said the company expects to find bidders for most of the remaining assets by the end of next month. Meanwhile, the Nortel/Ericsson sale was the subject of Canadian parliamentary hearings on Friday. Canadian vendor RIM is attempting to urge its government to help keep the assets in Nortel’s home country.