Nokia (News - Alert) is looking to get rid of its luxury cellphone line: Vertu.

Spoils will likely go to either Permira, an equity firm from the U.K., who works with Valentino and Hugo Boss. Another contender is a Northern European group known as EQT.

The Constellation Candy, released by Vertu earlier in the month, bears gem stones, rubies and Tsavorites. The back plate of the phone is made of alligator skin.

No mass production techniques, here: an individual craftsman builds each phone, start-to-finish. The finished product costs $9,500. At the extreme end of the expensive spectrum, Vertu released the $310,000 Signature in 2006.

Vertu phones come with two complementary repairs per-year and one-click data back-ups, and The London Symphony Orchestra performs all ring tones featured on their handsets.

Sunteck Realty recently worked with Vertu to design a custom series of room and concierge handsets for residents at Signature Island, in Mumbai. Signature Island will house some of the world's wealthiest individuals with 7,000 and 11,000 apartment spaces. The custom handsets will become part of the "Signature Concierge Service," providing round-the-clock access to residents.

A panicky sounding interim report urged Nokia investors "not to rely on summaries of our interim reports," and lamented "greater than expected competitor challenges."

It’s difficult to say it nicely, so we might as well just pull the Band-Aid off fast: Nokia lost $1.7 billion. Their European operations look especially disappointed after all four of Europe's big carrier companies rejected Nokia's offerings in favor of comparable products from the likes of Apple and Samsung (News - Alert).

But Nokia isn’t in too much trouble. Eliminating Vertu equates to something like an extremely rich person forced to sell off a yacht or two to refinance a mansion. The Lumia 900, Nokia's smartphone for mere mortals, did just fine this quarter, moving 2 million units.