[EchoTango]

Steve Jobs turned around apple in part due to a 50 million dollar loan from Gates and plenty of inovation. In contrast Chen has had billions slide through his fingers,all the time in the world and still nothing. Rock on Chen.

Posted via CB10

I'm not exactly proud of holding BB stock given its historical performance, but here we are. Chen cannot be compared to Jobs because while he was able to see the consumer possibilities of a handheld computer Jim and Mike were not. Chen was not around for this colossal blunder which saw Blackberry sit back watching their market share dwindle way while they continued to focus largely on the corporate market. Further, they spent precious resources dabbling in consumer services and products which they were ill equipped to develop with no real desire to deliver.

One can spend hours talking about Blackberry's demise and who did what and why. It really makes no difference because we are where we are. I still believe Blackberry is a depressed stock with a good strategy story provided they keep focused on delivery and don't go down every interesting rabbit hole.

[Corbu]

https://blogs.blackberry.com/2019/05...ircle-of-trust

[Seadog83]

I'm not exactly proud of holding BB stock given its historical performance, but here we are. Chen cannot be compared to Jobs because while he was able to see the consumer possibilities of a handheld computer Jim and Mike were not. Chen was not around for this colossal blunder which saw Blackberry sit back watching their market share dwindle way while they continued to focus largely on the corporate market. Further, they spent precious resources dabbling in consumer services and products which they were ill equipped to develop with no real desire to deliver.

One can spend hours talking about Blackberry's demise and who did what and why. It really makes no difference because we are where we are. I still believe Blackberry is a depressed stock with a good strategy story provided they keep focused on delivery and don't go down every interesting rabbit hole.

That's a refreshing take to hear, and exactly how I feel. I'm frankly getting tired of people cherry picking convenient dates to show how "great" the stock has done, anticipating a short squeeze that never comes (but is just around the corner!) despite having the lowest SI in close to a decade now as shorts quietly and painlessly exited, how every continuous slide is "a buying opportunity" and just instance after instance of no matter how poor the stock reacts, them cheering about how it's actually great news. Eagerly mentioning the Jan-Mar $3 run, while blissfully ignoring the $8 plop that preceded it. Refusing to acknowledge the truth doesn't make it so, it just makes you a fool. To me that's just salt in the wound. Buying and holding BB for 7+ years now, and tripling down in 3-4 yrs back after there were some signs that things were actually turning around is borderline embarrassing. While I've been bouncing +/- break even forever, the stock basically needs to double from here, just to get to the point of "not a dog" for it's last 5 yr run.

The bottom line is that the stock has performed atrociously. Yes it's true if you had a Morgan like insight, discipline, and tenacity you could have made money on the swings. It's also equally true that you could have put the money in an index fund or almost any stock at random and done magnitudes better than the buy and hold BB strategy. I got in later than some, so I guess I consider myself fortunate to "only" be sitting on 5-7 years of dead money despite one of the best market runs of my life.

Like you however; I also see value here, and it seems to be more obvious every day. It's like I want to shake people selling at these levels and say "how can you be this blind?" I think they're the best at what they do in several spheres, privacy concerns have been ramping up in every avenue, and think (hope?) that we're not too far from a inflection point. At the same time, it seems like even long term fans are capitulating and succumbing to the frustration of this never ending turn around. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet, but the scoreboard is not looking too nice for the Bears Vs the Bulls.

[abwan11]

Well we disagree on that...

It comes down to how other shareholder and board feel about the job he has done... most of them disagree with you too.

Might be best to liquidate and reinvest...

No common shareholder can be happy with Chens performance. The board members don't hold any significant amount of shares with the exception of prem who has an annuity paying him handsomely and covering his position, so he can't be counted on either.

Speaking of Chens performance, with a paycheck far greater then Steve was paid you would think he could muster up a tenth of a turnaround.

Jobs had a smaller company, worth 3 billion when he entered apple in 97, smaller market share(4%} then chen started with and about 150 million in cash as compared to Chens 2 billion. Apple/jobs had a loyal following, as did blackberry. Chen has one up on Jobs as he was a known turnaround artist,(apparently), . Jobs was an innovator and failed at that with apple in the 80's.

Although Chen served on Disney's board with Jobs, unfortunately he didn't learn anything from him, with the exception of splitting BB into 4 segments in 2013 , as Steve had done at apple when he took over. Big deal.

All considered, Chen had a launch pad far wider and greater for a rocket to launch from, instead he choose a auger to dig a little deeper into the ground.

Your right, you can't compare Chen to Jobs, not even for a moment.

Posted via CB10

[Seadog83]

No common shareholder can be happy with Chens performance. The board members don't hold any significant amount of shares with the exception of prem who has an annuity paying him handsomely and covering his position, so he can't be counted on either.

Posted via CB10

I'm honestly quite happy with where the company is under Chen's leadership compared to where it was. I'm disgusted at the stock price, but you have to bear in mind that Chen's performance is only loosely tied to the stock price. What event either internal or external has destroyed half of the value from 16 months ago? Why was the price wrong at $14, and right at $8, and not vice versa? Apple had so much momentum when Job's died, that it's really hard to get a fair assessment of how Cook performed, because anyone could have gone in, just done nothing and still made good numbers. Chen was presented with the opposite setup. And, comparing apples to apples, aside from the 2000 dot com bubble, it took 6-7 years for Apple to see any sustained growth, and almost double that until it really took off. In fact, AAPL similarly had an almost all time low right around the time Jobs took over, and even 5-6 years later was hitting low points that were within 20% of that. So while the next chapter of BB is yet to be written, every argument about BB's garbage stock performance from Chen taking over until now, could apply just as well to AAPL from when Jobs returned in Summer of '97 until summer of '03 when it started to go up.

And Prem is hardly swimming in money. 3.75% on 600m or like 23m/yr? He's in it for almost a billion dollars, Book price of something like 17.50/share, earning an extra $100m back in interest comes no where close to even getting him near to break even. For me with a sizable but minority position at an average of ~10, I'm frustrated as hell with the stock price. I can only imagine him, having been in longer, at a higher price, and with a majority of his money tied up there.

https://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files...ual-Report.pdf

"BlackBerry is on the move! On a fully converted basis we own 95 million shares at a net cost of $12.30 per share"

So even after taking into account every ounce of Jerry-rigging he could muster, debentures, interest paid, + assumed conversion, he's still down a third of his money.

Same goes for Chen, he has a huge indirect position in the stock, seeing as the lion's share of his compensation is tied to the stock price, and then itself paid in stock. And finally, why would he not care about the price? Why do you think he's doing this if not for glory and reputation? So he can pilfer the BB treasury, continue living a modest life then donate even more away? It just doesn't make sense.

[Bacon Munchers]

6 years of nothing, face the facts

Posted via CB10

Ok, if you have been holding for 6 straight years.

Some of us buy dips and sell rips.

Play accordingly, I suppose.

[Bacon Munchers]

I'm honestly quite happy with where the company is under Chen's leadership compared to where it was. I'm disgusted at the stock price, but you have to bear in mind that Chen's performance is only loosely tied to the stock price. What event either internal or external has destroyed half of the value from 16 months ago? Why was the price wrong at $14, and right at $8, and not vice versa? Apple had so much momentum when Job's died, that it's really hard to get a fair assessment of how Cook performed, because anyone could have gone in, just done nothing and still made good numbers. Chen was presented with the opposite setup. And, comparing apples to apples, aside from the 2000 dot com bubble, it took 6-7 years for Apple to see any sustained growth, and almost double that until it really took off. In fact, AAPL similarly had an almost all time low right around the time Jobs took over, and even 5-6 years later was hitting low points that were within 20% of that. So while the next chapter of BB is yet to be written, every argument about BB's garbage stock performance from Chen taking over until now, could apply just as well to AAPL from when Jobs returned in Summer of '97 until summer of '03 when it started to go up.

And Prem is hardly swimming in money. 3.75% on 600m or like 23m/yr? He's in it for almost a billion dollars, Book price of something like 17.50/share, earning an extra $100m back in interest comes no where close to even getting him near to break even. For me with a sizable but minority position at an average of ~10, I'm frustrated as hell with the stock price. I can only imagine him, having been in longer, at a higher price, and with a majority of his money tied up there.

https://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files...ual-Report.pdf

"BlackBerry is on the move! On a fully converted basis we own 95 million shares at a net cost of $12.30 per share"

So even after taking into account every ounce of Jerry-rigging he could muster, debentures, interest paid, + assumed conversion, he's still down a third of his money.

Same goes for Chen, he has a huge indirect position in the stock, seeing as the lion's share of his compensation is tied to the stock price, and then itself paid in stock. And finally, why would he not care about the price? Why do you think he's doing this if not for glory and reputation? So he can pilfer the BB treasury, continue living a modest life then donate even more away? It just doesn't make sense.

...Yeah, and to add...


......


..............


......................

Nevermind. You said it ALL.

Bravo.

[abwan11]

I'm honestly quite happy with where the company is under Chen's leadership compared to where it was. I'm disgusted at the stock price, but you have to bear in mind that Chen's performance is only loosely tied to the stock price. What event either internal or external has destroyed half of the value from 16 months ago? Why was the price wrong at $14, and right at $8, and not vice versa? Apple had so much momentum when Job's died, that it's really hard to get a fair assessment of how Cook performed, because anyone could have gone in, just done nothing and still made good numbers. Chen was presented with the opposite setup. And, comparing apples to apples, aside from the 2000 dot com bubble, it took 6-7 years for Apple to see any sustained growth, and almost double that until it really took off. In fact, AAPL similarly had an almost all time low right around the time Jobs took over, and even 5-6 years later was hitting low points that were within 20% of that. So while the next chapter of BB is yet to be written, every argument about BB's garbage stock performance from Chen taking over until now, could apply just as well to AAPL from when Jobs returned in Summer of '97 until summer of '03 when it started to go up.

And Prem is hardly swimming in money. 3.75% on 600m or like 23m/yr? He's in it for almost a billion dollars, Book price of something like 17.50/share, earning an extra $100m back in interest comes no where close to even getting him near to break even. For me with a sizable but minority position at an average of ~10, I'm frustrated as hell with the stock price. I can only imagine him, having been in longer, at a higher price, and with a majority of his money tied up there.

https://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files...ual-Report.pdf

"BlackBerry is on the move! On a fully converted basis we own 95 million shares at a net cost of $12.30 per share"

So even after taking into account every ounce of Jerry-rigging he could muster, debentures, interest paid, + assumed conversion, he's still down a third of his money.

Same goes for Chen, he has a huge indirect position in the stock, seeing as the lion's share of his compensation is tied to the stock price, and then itself paid in stock. And finally, why would he not care about the price? Why do you think he's doing this if not for glory and reputation? So he can pilfer the BB treasury, continue living a modest life then donate even more away? It just doesn't make sense.

Jobs' influence was immediately felt. He set out to re polish the brand. Everything lines up with Chens entrance and Blackberry, the difference being that 6 years in Jobs was well on his way. And everyone knew it. And Jobs was focused on tech in a tech company. Chen is focused on finance in a tech company, big difference.

Prems debt was 1.2b for 3yrs @6% (or whatever it was) it turns out to be 250 to 300mil, and a free option to boot. That's a pretty good dividend. Prem doesn't miss a trick, as described in the link below. Prem plays it from all angles, his interest is in dollars and cents not tech. Chen does his bidding, and they run the company from a financial perspective not tech.

So is this what shareholders were to expect from this turnaround? Forced to insure the outcome of a few insiders like Manson family members.

https://business.financialpost.com/n...takeover-offer

Posted via CB10

[bbjdog]

I doubt there are many CEO's that would hold up to what Steve did with Apple...

I doubt there are many CEO's that wold hold up to what Chen did either.... reality is what he had to work with back in 2013 was worth a LOT less than most here taught at the time.

I just have to repost this comment mate!!

[bbjdog]

Please post good reading material and not rants. I have ignored all posts and enjoying my beer instead. Lol

[abwan11]

Right, I forgot,

paid pumping only.

Posted via CB10

[bbjdog]

Right, I forgot,

paid pumping only.

Posted via CB10

Yeah good reading material only, did you forget that memo!!!!!

[Chuck Finley69]

No common shareholder can be happy with Chens performance. The board members don't hold any significant amount of shares with the exception of prem who has an annuity paying him handsomely and covering his position, so he can't be counted on either.

Speaking of Chens performance, with a paycheck far greater then Steve was paid you would think he could muster up a tenth of a turnaround.

Jobs had a smaller company, worth 3 billion when he entered apple in 97, smaller market share(4%} then chen started with and about 150 million in cash as compared to Chens 2 billion. Apple/jobs had a loyal following, as did blackberry. Chen has one up on Jobs as he was a known turnaround artist,(apparently), . Jobs was an innovator and failed at that with apple in the 80's.

Although Chen served on Disney's board with Jobs, unfortunately he didn't learn anything from him, with the exception of splitting BB into 4 segments in 2013 , as Steve had done at apple when he took over. Big deal.

All considered, Chen had a launch pad far wider and greater for a rocket to launch from, instead he choose a auger to dig a little deeper into the ground.

Your right, you can't compare Chen to Jobs, not even for a moment.

Posted via CB10

The problem with revisionist history is that what you right has to make correct sense. Gates backed Jobs so that Apple wouldn’t go under and leave Microsoft to even more antitrust scrutiny. Additionally, this meant that Apple was in essence in partner with it’s OS software competitor and eventual hardware competitor. All the numbers are meaningless if missing the context where, how and who they exist for and with competitive wise.

BlackBerry didn’t exist in the same vacuum that Apple did 15 years earlier.

[abwan11]

Yeah good reading material only, did you forget that memo!!!!!

The commenting ensures you read it. Load and clear.

Posted via CB10

[Seadog83]

J

Prems debt was 1.2b for 3yrs @6% (or whatever it was) it turns out to be 250 to 300mil, and a free option to boot. That's a pretty good dividend. Prem doesn't miss a trick, as described in the link below. Prem plays it from all angles, his interest is in dollars and cents not tech. Chen does his bidding, and they run the company from a financial perspective not tech.

That's some pretty nice assuming of facts and rounding of numbers. Let's take this slow with actual numbers so you don't get lost. Even if it *was* 3 years at 1.2b at 6%, that's the sort of calculation you can do in our head. 3*12m*6 = 216m, so not sure how you managed to bungle the grade 4 math and get a number 50% higher.

And even 6% is hardly that great considering that you could have bought any of the Canadian banks for 1-2% less payout, and had a centuries old record of security and no dividend cuts, vs say 2013 BB where bankruptcy was a true possibility.

For the first 3 years, Prem had 250m(with 500m option which I believe he took) of debentures @ 6%, so made $45m($90m) in that time.

https://www.fairfax.ca/news/press-re...d/default.aspx

...("Fairfax" or the "Company") (TSX:FFH)(TSX:FFH.U) announced today that it has acquired, through its subsidiaries, ownership of $250,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 6% unsecured subordinated convertible debentures maturing on November 13, 2020

...Fairfax has also been granted an option to arrange for the purchase of an additional $250,000,000 principal amount of Debentures within 30 days of the initial issuance of the Debentures.

Once they were renewed in 2016, I can't find what portion of the $600m went to FFH, but even to give you a bone I'll assume they all did. That's another 22.5m/yr for 4 more years. So absolute best case payout scenario, for a time frame more than double you alluded to, was 180m. Barely 2/3rds of your lower limit for just the first 3 years.

I think it's actually closer to 500m to FFH, for the reason that he says he has 95m shares fully converted, and currently has 45m shares. (so 50m shares = 500m / $10 conversion price)

https://www.holdingschannel.com/13f/...-top-holdings/

Assuming he's not bull****ting us and keen to go to jail, that means he's in it for 95m * $12.3 = 1.17B.

Subtract out the $500m in converted debentures, add back the .18b in interest, and you get a book value of around $18.80/share.

Keep in mind that $12.3 price is assuming the conversion, which if the price isn't over $10 is pointless and he'll just take the cash back. So I really am not sure how you can argue that Prem is laughing all the way to the bank. If the share price appreciates like 20% to $10, it will make sense for him to convert and *only* be sitting on a $220m loss or so. If not, say it's at 9.99, he gets his 5/600m back, pockets the interest, is still down about $230m for a decade of investment, but now has a book value of closer to $15 so with fewer shares will take longer to recover.

J

Jobs' influence was immediately felt. He set out to re polish the brand. Everything lines up with Chens entrance and Blackberry, the difference being that 6 years in Jobs was well on his way. And everyone knew it. And Jobs was focused on tech in a tech company. Chen is focused on finance in a tech company, big difference.

Everyone knew it? If that's the case why did no one in the market see that magical, obvious, can't lose transformation and were still happily trading shares for a price within 20% of what it was when Jobs took over, 6 years after the fact? Why did it take 6-7 years just to sustainably get and stay to where it was just a couple years before Jobs took over? I would argue that many learned folks who have actually taken the time to delve into the nitty gritty of BB, and don't just look superficially at "oh revs are falling! woe is me!" details are also of the opinion that Chen is well on his way to rebuilding a monster.

If you have a salient point by all means, but pontificating as such is just as bad as people are cheering the stock performance by cherry picking either "1 year ago" or "2 Yrs ago" or "YTD" or "Since Chen was announced" or "Since Chen actually started" or "Since Jarvis was announced" or what the hell ever, you can basically find anything you want to support a position while looking backwards.

"In the last 2 weeks, AAPL has lost 10% of it value. If this trend continues, it will be worthless by Fall."

[abwan11]

@seadogg

That piece of pink chalk your using must of broke , you left out the 84 million dollar redemtion fee paid to debt holders for early redemtion or an additional 6.72% premium or another full years interest payment upfront.

Like I said 250 300 million paid to the mob. Burn some of that wood and try to remember, this was money sitting there for no purpose, it was never touched in all those years. What do you do with a company (apparently) on the brink of bankruptcy? According to prem and co. you straddle it with debt. Yup, makes sense, to you maybe.

Anyone affiliated to the mob is mob. Anyone affiliated with Prem is Prem essentially. . We can dig in as deep as you like and put primecap at the top of the hit list, the hedge fund responsible for Prems no money takeover, but will go with what's on the back of the cereal box, to keep things within your scope of understanding.

Rock on.

Posted via CB10

[Chuck Finley69]

@seadogg

That piece of pink chalk your using must of broke , you left out the 84 million dollar redemtion fee paid to debt holders for early redemtion or an additional 6.72% premium or another full years interest payment upfront.

Like I said 250 300 million paid to the mob. Burn some of that wood and try to remember, this was money sitting there for no purpose, it was never touched in all those years. What do you do with a company (apparently) on the brink of bankruptcy? According to prem and co. you straddle it with debt. Yup, makes sense, to you maybe.

Anyone affiliated to the mob is mob. Anyone affiliated with Prem is Prem essentially. . We can dig in as deep as you like and put primecap at the top of the hit list, the hedge fund responsible for Prems no money takeover, but will go with what's on the back of the cereal box, to keep things within your scope of understanding.

Rock on.

Posted via CB10

The cash position was partly there for securing previous obligations with components suppliers. It was also there in order to protect lending covenants. It was designed to keep company technically solvent and capable of running day to day operations while also restructuring asset deployment.

[Corbu]

@abwan11

Let me say this.

I personally think that by using comments such as "but will go with what's on the back of the cereal box, to keep things within your scope of understanding", which I consider discourteous and derogatory, you are simply hurting yourself.

I, for one, have no time for such an attitude.

[abwan11]

@seadog

"Everyone knew it" ,except you.

Within a year of Jobs arrival at apple he launches The iMac, a success right from the start. Sales went through the roof, and for some time, iMac was the #1 computer sold in the US.

Pretty good for a few days on the job, you think?

As compared to Chens hocus pocus approach ..6 years in.

Posted via CB10

[abwan11]

The cash position was partly there for securing previous obligations with components suppliers. It was also there in order to protect lending covenants. It was designed to keep company technically solvent and capable of running day to day operations while also restructuring asset deployment.

That's funny because as I recall they had 2.1 billion in cash, with no debt,that cash has only recently dwindle down and debt dollars are still held in reserve.

Posted via CB10

[Chuck Finley69]

That's funny because as I recall they had 2.1 billion in cash, with no debt,that cash has only recently dwindle down and debt dollars are still held in reserve.

Posted via CB10

Go back and pull the sheets from October 2013 and look at the negative cash flows beginning about 12-18 months previous.

[abwan11]

@abwan11

Let me say this.

I personally think that by using comments such as "but will go with what's on the back of the cereal box, to keep things within your scope of understanding", which I consider discourteous and derogatory, you are simply hurting yourself.

I, for one, have no time for such an attitude.

I'm sure he's a friend of yours because you left seadoggs comments towards me out of your complaint, seems to happen a lot around here. Take another look at who took the first shot,

Posted via CB10

[abwan11]

Go back and pull the sheets from October 2013 and look at the negative cash flows beginning about 12-18 months previous.

Yes they were burning cash, but hey had cash on hand that seems to have endured.

Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

"I'm sure he's a friend of yours because you left seadoggs comments towards me out of your complaint, seems to happen a lot around here. Take another look at who took the first shot."

You simply don't get it, abwan11.

I believe there is room for all sorts of viewpoints in here. Whether we agree or not with them is besides the point.

I speak only for myself but as much as I welcome what you have to say, I have an issue with your tone. I'd say "Leave the attitude at the door" if you want to engage in a healthy debate and gain the respect of others.

But hey, it's up to you.

[Chuck Finley69]

Yes they were burning cash, but hey had cash on hand that seems to have endured.

Posted via CB10

Through asset restructuring and revenue buying of competitors. The primary sources of BB revenue in 2012-2013 are practically nonexistent through obsolescence in 2018-2019 time-frame. You're comparing apples to blackberries.