“Struggling smartphone maker Blackberry has agreed in principle to be bought by a consortium led by Fairfax Financial for $4.7bn (£3bn),” BBC News reports. “Blackberry said in statement that Fairfax, its largest shareholder with about 10% of the stock, had offered $9 a share in cash to buy the company.”
“On Friday, Blackberry announced 4,500 jobs cuts in a bid to stem losses,” The Beeb reports. “The Canadian company said it expected to make a loss of up to $1bn after poor sales of its new handsets. In August, Blackberry said it was evaluating a possible sale.”
The Beeb reports, “Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa, Fairfax’s chairman and chief executive, said: ‘We believe this transaction will open an exciting new private chapter for Blackberry, its customers, carriers and employees. We can deliver immediate value to shareholders, while we continue the execution of a long-term strategy in a private company with a focus on delivering superior and secure enterprise solutions to Blackberry customers around the world.'”
“Brian Colello, analyst at Morningstar, said that taking Blackberry private would allow the company to reorganise without being under the glare of Wall Street investors,” The Beeb reports. “He said: ‘Based on the company’s disastrous earnings warning on Friday, I think a deal had to happen and the sooner the better. This is probably the only out for investors and the most likely outcome. The benefit to this sort of takeover is the ability for Blackberry and the consortium to reinvent the company without public scrutiny.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, maybe they can sell floor wax or something.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Like Dell, this is yet another once-high-profile company that Steve Jobs & Co.’s utterly, mercilessly, remorselessly destroyed.
iPhone, killer.
Amateur hour is over.
R.I.P., Blackberry. Dead Company, Walking No More.