Why would Microsoft pay €5 billion for what apparently is a troubled mobile devices company?

Perhaps there’s a method to this madness. Let’s look at three facts that most of the critics never seem to mention.

First, Microsoft gets to pay for the deal with cash that’s trapped overseas, where it’s free of U.S. taxes. As the Wall Street Journal noted last fall, $69.6 billion out of a total of $77 billion cash on Microsoft’s books is held overseas in low-yielding securities. If the company brought it back to the U.S., it would be taxed at corporate rates. Not having to pay that tax makes the effective price of Nokia’s Devices and Enterprise division a mere €3.25 billion.

And in exchange for that relatively modest investment, the company gets an amazing pool of engineering and hardware design talent, worldwide supply chain management expertise, global manufacturing resources, billing deals with mobile carriers worldwide (crucial to selling apps and services), and access to a treasure trove of patents. Those 32,000 employees can make an immediate dent across the board in Microsoft’s other hardware lines, including Surface and Xbox.

This isn’t a struggling division. It’s worth noting that Nokia has won major awards at Mobile World Congress three years in a row: Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet in 2012; Best Feature phone or entry level phone in 2013; Best Low Cost Smartphone (the Lumia 520) in 2014.

And here’s the kicker: the division promises to begin contributing to a positive bottom line for Microsoft immediately. As Microsoft noted in its required disclosures:

With ongoing share growth and the synergies across marketing, branding and advertising, we expect this acquisition to be accretive to our adjusted earnings per share starting in FY15 [which begins in July 2014, mere months after the deal is due to close].

Terrible deal? Colossal mistake? We can revisit this in a few years, but there are a lot of positives to start with. If you think this could end very well, you’re not crazy.