Beijing-based Lenovo considering buying BlackBerry-maker RIM, says CFO

“Lenovo Group Ltd. is assessing potential acquisition targets and strategic alliances, including a deal with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd., as the second-largest producer of personal computers tries to bolster its mobile-device business,” Laurie Hays and Edmond Lococo report for Bloomberg News. “‘We are looking at all opportunities — RIM and many others,’ Chief Financial Officer Wong Wai Ming said today in an interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. ‘We’ll have no hesitation if the right opportunity comes along that could benefit us and shareholders.'”

“RIM began a review of its strategic options last year after losing market share to smartphones such as Apple Inc.’’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy, raising speculation that it could be a takeover target,” Hays and Lococo report. “Beijing-based Lenovo, which bought International Business Machines Corp.’s PC unit in 2005, is considering acquisitions and adding new products as competition from tablets hampers profit growth.”

Hays and Lococo report, “The PC maker has a team working on possible acquisitions, Wong said. Lenovo has spoken to RIM and its bankers about various combinations or strategic ventures, he said… Acquiring RIM would require approval from Canadian and U.S. regulators because of the size of the transaction and the fact that the company operates secure mobile networks for government agencies. Canadian Industry Minister Christian Paradis said this week that he would prefer RIM to grow ‘organically.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: The only thing beleaguered RIM is going to do “organically” is decompose.

10 Comments

  1. We’re Apple Centric to say the least here. It causes us to see the technology world in a bubble. The entire world doesn’t work that way though. Lenovo and RIM inherently means Lenovo, RIM, and Microsoft and that’s a formidable alliance no matter how dumb Ballmer is.

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.