About two weeks ago, the news came that a consortium led by the Canadian financial company Fairfax Financial had offered $4.7 billion to buy BlackBerry Limited. The smartphone maker only signed a letter of intent that allows the company to deal with other possible buyers and there are rumors of other potential offers. However, the news came of a lawsuit filed by a shareholder that could further complicate the situation.
In fact, rumors about the companies potentially interested in buying BlackBerry aren’t new but over the weekend the Reuters news agency reported that the smartphone maker is in talks with Cisco, Google and SAP. According to Reuters, Intel, Samsung and LG are to be included in the group of potential buyers. For the moment there are no official answers from the mentioned companies, is there anything more than mere rumors?
BlackBerry is a company that has been in decline for quite some time but its customers still have considerable value. It also has many patents and this is an important factor in a period in which they’re used as weapons in fights between technology giants. The problem is that the value of BlackBerry patents and its licensing agreements are expected to halve over the next 18 months.
A further complication for BlackBerry came from the announcement of the shareholder Marvin Pearlstein, who accused the company of making false statements about its future. According to documents filed in a federal court in Manhattan, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins (photo courtesy of BlackBerry Limited. Unauthorized use is not permitted) is accused of having misled investors by stating that the company was still a strong financial reality.
More optimistic declarations coming from BlackBerry over the last year are attached to the accusations, which also include the company’s CFO Brian Bidulka. Marvin Pearlstein intends to lead a class action representing the complaints of those who bought BlackBerry shares between September 27, 2012, when Thorsten Heins released the statement in question, and September 20, 2013, when the company announced the loss of nearly $1 billion in the second fiscal quarter.
In short, there really is no peace for the former leader in the field of smartphones. We just have to wait for the next twist in a story that is becoming more and more complicated.
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