Mike Zafirovski can start at Nortel in two weeks after a deal was worked out with Motorola. As expected, he will give back $11.5 million of a $16 million severance package (sweet!) and agree not to poach any of Motorola's employees. The deal is a win-win all around. Nortel gets the CEO it desperately needs, Mike Z. gets to be a CEO, which he desperately wanted, and Motorola gets some cash back after making life miserable for Nortel and Mike Z. for a few weeks. Nortel, by the way, will release its third-quarter results on Wednesday. Orion Securities analyst Duncan Stewart has come out with his first report on Nortel with an overweight (speculative) rating and a 12-month target price of $4.50. "With a shiny new chief executive officer and the expefcted Q4 budget flush, we believe that Nortel is poised to do well in the very short term," he said to start the 30-page report. (Update: I was remiss in not pointing out Stewart is decidedly down on Nortel in the long-term. In particular, he believes Nortel is late to market in many areas or unlikely to sell enough product to generate growth.)