On the BlackBerry front, they’ve got two pieces of news that’s making the rounds today. The first is, they have some potential suitors according to Reuters:
BlackBerry Ltd, on the block as its smartphone business struggles, is in talks with Cisco Systems, Google Inc and SAP about selling them all or parts of itself, several sources close to the matter said.
Such a deal would be an alternative to the preliminary agreement reached weeks ago with a group, led by BlackBerry’s biggest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings, to take the company private for about $4.7 billion, a bid which has faced some skepticism because of financing questions.
The company, based in Waterloo, Ontario, has asked for preliminary expressions of interest from potential strategic buyers, which also include Intel Corp and Asian companies LG and Samsung, by early next week.
It is unclear which parties will bid, if any. But the potential technology buyers have been especially interested in BlackBerry’s secure server network and patent portfolio, although doubts about the assets’ value remain an issue, the sources said.
Google, Intel, Cisco, LG and SAP declined to comment. Samsung was not immediately available for comment.
If this is true, one would think it’s for some of the tech that BlackBerry has rather than for the business as a whole. But before they get that far, they may have to navigate a lawsuit from shareholders first:
A class action lawsuit filed by one BlackBerry shareholder claims leaders of the Waterloo, Ont.-based smartphone maker failed to tell investors that “the company was not on the road to recovery and reemerging as a lead player in the wireless communications industry.”
“In reality, the BlackBerry 10 was not well-received by the market,” said the lawsuit, filed in a Manhattan court by shareholder Marvin Pearlstein on Friday.
The class action suit seeks to represent “thousands” of shareholders who purchased BlackBerry stock from Sept. 27, 2012, to Sept. 20 of this year, a period in which it alleges executives misrepresented the state of BlackBerry’s operations.
Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are chief executive Thorsten Heins and chief financial officer Brian Bidulka.
None of the allegations have been proven in court, and a representative for BlackBerry was not immediately available for comment.
This sort of thing tends to happen when companies go sideways. But it’s likely a distraction that BlackBerry doesn’t need at the moment.
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This entry was posted on October 5, 2013 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags BlackBerry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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BlackBerry News: Potential Suitors And A Lawsuit
On the BlackBerry front, they’ve got two pieces of news that’s making the rounds today. The first is, they have some potential suitors according to Reuters:
BlackBerry Ltd, on the block as its smartphone business struggles, is in talks with Cisco Systems, Google Inc and SAP about selling them all or parts of itself, several sources close to the matter said.
Such a deal would be an alternative to the preliminary agreement reached weeks ago with a group, led by BlackBerry’s biggest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings, to take the company private for about $4.7 billion, a bid which has faced some skepticism because of financing questions.
The company, based in Waterloo, Ontario, has asked for preliminary expressions of interest from potential strategic buyers, which also include Intel Corp and Asian companies LG and Samsung, by early next week.
It is unclear which parties will bid, if any. But the potential technology buyers have been especially interested in BlackBerry’s secure server network and patent portfolio, although doubts about the assets’ value remain an issue, the sources said.
Google, Intel, Cisco, LG and SAP declined to comment. Samsung was not immediately available for comment.
If this is true, one would think it’s for some of the tech that BlackBerry has rather than for the business as a whole. But before they get that far, they may have to navigate a lawsuit from shareholders first:
A class action lawsuit filed by one BlackBerry shareholder claims leaders of the Waterloo, Ont.-based smartphone maker failed to tell investors that “the company was not on the road to recovery and reemerging as a lead player in the wireless communications industry.”
“In reality, the BlackBerry 10 was not well-received by the market,” said the lawsuit, filed in a Manhattan court by shareholder Marvin Pearlstein on Friday.
The class action suit seeks to represent “thousands” of shareholders who purchased BlackBerry stock from Sept. 27, 2012, to Sept. 20 of this year, a period in which it alleges executives misrepresented the state of BlackBerry’s operations.
Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are chief executive Thorsten Heins and chief financial officer Brian Bidulka.
None of the allegations have been proven in court, and a representative for BlackBerry was not immediately available for comment.
This sort of thing tends to happen when companies go sideways. But it’s likely a distraction that BlackBerry doesn’t need at the moment.
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This entry was posted on October 5, 2013 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags BlackBerry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.