BlackBerry Stock Plunges As CEO Ousted And Purchase Deal Nixed

The storm clouds are clearly hovering over Waterloo Ontario this morning as two pieces of news hit the wires.

First, the $4.7 billion Fairfax deal to buy BlackBerry is off and so is any attempt to sell itself. Instead, the company will try and raise $1 billion:

The new plan will involve raising roughly $1-billion by selling convertible notes to a group of investors, according to people familiar with the transaction. 

Buy there’s more:

Chief executive officer Thorsten Heins will depart the company, and the company will announce changes to its board, the people said.

To me, this has the feel of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Investors clearly feel that way as well as they gave the stock an 18% haircut in pre-market activity. There could still be a white knight to ride to the rescue. But as I type this, it does not look good for BlackBerry. I’d stay tuned as this could get very interesting today.

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