[skibnik]

In my humble opinion going private is the only way to save BlackBerry in the form it is in now. Any company that would purchase BlackBerry would do so with the sole intention of breaking it apart into tiny pieces and selling it off to maximize their profit not try and turn around the company. One of the greatest hurdles a publicly traded company has is trying to please their stockholders no matter how well or how profitable a company is its not good enough in the eyes of the stockholders they want their ever increasing dividends no matter the cost to the general health of the company. We have large corporations sitting on trillions of dollars, money that could and should be spent to reinvest and innovate instead companies hoard their profits layoff workers to save enough money to pay larger dividends even taking out loans in some cases to pay dividends!

People have criticized BlackBerry that they released their new hardware at too high a cost to consumers, but try explaining to your shareholders why it's nessary to perhaps break even on hardware sales in the beginning to grab back market share rather than earn 20% on each unit? BlackBerry didn't market BB10 good enough is another sore point with critics. Going by standard practices by corporations today it was more important for BlackBerry to hoard 2 billion dollars than use some of its reserve cash to market their products. And let's not forget the short sellers they exist to live off the misery of failing companies a practice that should be tightly regulated and policed.


If BlackBerry goes private they will have no screaming shareholders to worry about no short sellers to worry about and the media won't have the access it has with a public company ect. The new owners can then proceed with their turnaround plan with no distractions of course this is predecated on the fact that Prem and company are honest and sincere in their intentions of course. Again this is just my humble opinion I'm not trying to be an apologist for BlackBerry or Mr Heins lol



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[EchoTango]

Again, spoken from the perspective of a non-shareholder.

I can certainly attest that my view is completely different and feel that going private is certainly an option, just not funded by the current shareholders !

[heymaggie]

The new owners can then proceed with their turnaround plan with no distractions of course this is predecated on the fact that Prem and company are honest and sincere in their intentions of course.

A billion dollar write-down of the assets of a privately held company can be pretty distracting, too. If all you are looking for is honesty and sincerity then I'm guessing you don't own much stock in a privately held company. The owners of privately held companies aren't going to allow them to waste marketing dollars or raise compensation any more than publicly held companies. If anything, publicly held companies are more loosely controlled than privately held ones.

Going private won't change any of the fundamentals of Blackberry's business. It won't buy them any more time. The buyer is going to take the Blackberry cash and use it to immediately pay back to the bank that lent the money.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Despite what Prem has implied, I don't see Fairfax or anyone else investing the several billion dollars it would take to even attempt to turn BB around. I see them leaning out BB even further, running it for a year to burn off existing inventory, then break up the company and sell off the patents.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Agree that going private is not the answer at this point. You forget the Fairfax is owned by shareholders also, if PW comes to his board in six months with the option of selling it all off or investing another three or four billion into BlackBerry... he/they will have a hard time justifying it.

Because as things stand, there is no foreseeable path to BlackBerry becoming profitable in the near future.


Being bought by a LARGE company with deep pockets that can afford to take a long term view with BlackBerry and invest several Billion more dollars into finishing BB10, relaunching it and doing it the right way.... that is our only hope.

[skibnik]

A billion dollar write-down of the assets of a privately held company can be pretty distracting, too. If all you are looking for is honesty and sincerity then I'm guessing you don't own much stock in a privately held company. The owners of privately held companies aren't going to allow them to waste marketing dollars or raise compensation any more than publicly held companies. If anything, publicly held companies are more loosely controlled than privately held ones.

Going private won't change any of the fundamentals of Blackberry's business. It won't buy them any more time. The buyer is going to take the Blackberry cash and use it to immediately pay back to the bank that lent the money.

Again if Blackberry goes private and the investors intentions are to save the company rather than split it up sell it off and are dedicated to turning around BlackBerry they are invested in the long haul not instant gains they are seeing the bigger picture and understand more pain might be coming before a turnaround happens. These investors are not like the general public that use the stock market like a giant casino

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[br14]

So you're effectively saying the company is worth more than $9 and if you just hold on for a little longer everything will come good.

Well, I'm a shareholder. And while I've supported the company for the past 8 years I'm afraid as a public entity they are finished. They may survive as a much slimmer private corporation (there's a smallish market that loves the product range).

Their sales collapsed in the last quarter, and given the incredibly negative publicity around the organization, I very much doubt they'll be better this quarter. When even Canadian carriers refuse to sell their products in store (the Z30 is only available online through Rogers) you know they're about at the end of the road.

With their spending ($500 million a quarter) and their commitments to external vendors (around $3 billion in the current fiscal year), they'll have burned through their cash pile by next summer at the latest.

In other words, without going private, the company will be forced to announce massive losses again next quarter and the current price of around $8 will look like fantastic value when the negative PR from the losses hits the markets. They look like the walking dead.

The price will drop through the floor, major investors will jump ship to avoid the crash, the company will be sold off in pieces and you'll be lucky to see $5 a share.

The ONLY option for small shareholders is to sell at $9. Shares are only worth what someone will pay. And right now $9 is as much as anyone has been willing to offer.

[skibnik]

So you're effectively saying the company is worth more than $9 and if you just hold on for a little longer everything will come good.

Well, I'm a shareholder. And while I've supported the company for the past 8 years I'm afraid as a public entity they are finished. They may survive as a much slimmer private corporation (there's a smallish market that loves the product range).

Their sales collapsed in the last quarter, and given the incredibly negative publicity around the organization, I very much doubt they'll be better this quarter. When even Canadian carriers refuse to sell their products in store (the Z30 is only available online through Rogers) you know they're about at the end of the road.

With their spending ($500 million a quarter) and their commitments to external vendors (around $3 billion in the current fiscal year), they'll have burned through their cash pile by next summer at the latest.

In other words, without going private, the company will be forced to announce massive losses again next quarter and the current price of around $8 will look like fantastic value when the negative PR from the losses hits the markets. They look like the walking dead.

The price will drop through the floor, major investors will jump ship to avoid the crash, the company will be sold off in pieces and you'll be lucky to see $5 a share.

The ONLY option for small shareholders is to sell at $9. Shares are only worth what someone will pay. And right now $9 is as much as anyone has been willing to offer.

I know there is no simple solution and perhaps I may be wearing rose coloured glasses when trying to discern Prem and company's intentions for BlackBerry. All I know is if Blackberry is to be saved they will need a buyer who has a plan to actually save rather than destroy what's left of BlackBerry and is willing to take short term losses to do so. I know the small investors are getting the short stick but what the alternative? Another Nortel?

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[Troy Tiscareno]

IMO, the BB hardware business (i.e., smartphones) died with the Z10 write-down. And BB has been trying to find companies interested in licensing BB10 for over a year, and no takers. Watsa knows that, and so does everyone else involved. Watsa has already stated that Fairfax won't be investing any more money into the company to make the sale, and I don't see them investing much, if anything, to try to "right the ship", given that it would take BILLIONS to even make an attempt.

If anything, a buyer would discontinue the hardware business (other than continuing to sell the existing stock), and focus strictly on BBM, BES (though BES10 hasn't done well in the market either), and the QNX business (which is comparatively tiny, but at least profitable). The only other logical alternative is to break up the company for parts and sell it off, hopefully at a profit.

I don't see any way that BB is going to continue to be in the BB10 business in 2014, unless no deal is made and they are still in it by pure inertia. It's notable that we've heard of absolutely nothing about future phone models or major OS upgrades, when before, there was a roadmap that was known well in advance. No point in extending the roadmap if you're done with your trip...

[BlackBerry Guy]

Going private only gets them out of the public eye. But if the leadership continues to make similar type decisions like they have in the past, then the end result will be the same regardless public or private.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Public eye only affected stock value. BB10's poor sales were a result a product that was not ready and a company out of touch with what consumers wanted.

Going private at this point does nothing to change BB10 or the products on the market today. And it won't keep Tech writers or reviewers from writing about the company.

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