[BlackistheBerry]

JLagoon,

You are totally right, Prem landed on a pile of dog **** and came out smelling great on this one. I think he had a $ 12.00/shr target in mind and along came the change in accounting for handset sales. I wouldn't be surprised to see him have so room on the price here but so far, he is the best bid in the house. There is a 90% ownership rule in place in order to force a holder of stock to hand other their shares, but it is equally dumb for a holder of 10% of the company like Prem to be so stubborn that all of the other shares get snapped up and he is left holding 10% of an essentually private company. If there is no market or trades in a stock, how will he be able to sell out of his position and move on? He can't prevent a company from offering $ 12.00/shr, he can retain his stock but why would you continue to hold onto stock and dry up the market? At some price, he will be willing to let his block go peacefully. It is with this back-stop that there is room for others to step in and make an offer. Heck, Mikey might be planning on protecting his investment with an offer, trying to obtain 51% of the outstanding shares and effectively control the company apart from Prem. We just don't know who is working this acquisition, Prem, Mikey, or others can turn this whole thing upside down in seconds. There should be no surprise that he made an appearance to say that he has the backing and the money. He is reading the news just like we are every day.

The SP had been going down.
Many have been saying that that's what Prem wants, so that he can get the company cheaper with a lower bid.
But he stepped in, and prevented the decline today.
Coupled with the fact that he mentioned that he is not known for changing deals, does this not mean that he does intend to pay $9 and is not going to come up with a lower bid later?

[morganplus8]

Hey Morgan! I want to say thanks for lending us your time, most of us in these parts value your knowledge and experience on investing/trading. We learned a lot from you, buddy!

It was crazy seeing a lot of attack posts on you recently by what amounts to a bunch of wankers... but I remain confident that you were above the bickering and didn't let it bother you! A lot of this negativty was pointed your way only because you stuck your neck out after we kept hounding and hounding you for advice in the first place!!! In any case, your time on here was (hopefully) a two way relationship... you mentioned a few times that you got from us as much as we got from you. The regulars on here moved as a team.

In my opinion, even though the story is far from over, I think any failure of BBRY ever taking off can be attributed to the perfect storm of management incompetence. How were we supposed to have seen through the smokescreens? Us longs -not only on this kooliad thread, but everywhere- gave BB the benefit of the doubt on what little scraps of "information" we were given (the "surprises to be unveiled at launch", the hope of a SuperBowl ad that turned out to be a waste of time, the BS of "sales exceeding our expectations", flood of Z10 adoption from iOS and Droid users, the "tens of millions" quote from Heins, the cryptic sellthrough numbers, mobile computing jargon, the 100k+ apps that came mostly from one source, BB10 of Playbook, xBBM by end of summer, etc, etc, etc) If they actually stuck to their promises, heck, if we weren't lied to, the TA would have been dead on!

See ya elsewhere, I hope

Hey m0de25!!!

Thanks for those kind words, I mentioned in a post a few minutes ago that the mods have my back just like many of you do. This one guy is a bit "different" and probably needs a hug or something. I let it roll off as he is the one who is stuck in a bad place. I read your mesaage about leaving this investment, this one has not been a "normal" company operating under normal media scrutiny, it might be the hardest trade to succeed at, in a long time although those of us who were in TSLA and/or NFLX would say we aren't any different. CB won't let me give out any more "Thanks" and I didn't feel good leaving a "Like" for such wonderful comments on your part. Take care and I assure you we will cross paths again!

[_dimi_]

This one is for you Morgan! Ipanema Beach, Rio



Posted via CB10

[morganplus8]

Hi Morgan,

Is it likely that Mike L. joins Prem long enough to see gains from a 'back-door' sale to say, MicroSoft, or the like? I have a real bad itch that Prem may have already sparked a deal with MS or Samsung post his taking BBRY private.

My summary question to you would be: Is any of this legal? Plausible?

PS - I really dislike all this speculation....

Hi Bacon Munchers!!

That will be tough to prove. I would be shocked if Mikey and Prem aren't on the same page with this offer. Mikey has plenty to lose here and he is a genious, he would be looking to raise BlackBerry from the dead again. Both of these guys are successful, young, rich, they are tied to the University of Waterloo ..... plenty of reasons to want to work together. As for them doing a deal with a big player later, not in the form of selling anything so much as partnering up with some of them makes sense. I believe they like the assets the way they are today. They need to know how many phones a corporation would want along the lines of what HP and Dell do, produce that number of handsets and tighten things up from there. The failure of BB is the fact that they wanted to be all things for everyone. The media got to them and they became blinded by their own success. They needed to forget about 14 yr, olds and sell highend phones to the rich. Forget about phones as a commodity, sell a coveted phone to those who need a true business phone. I think they will expand the company via partnerships, something that the board wanted to do but now see it can't be done in the eyes of the lame media.

[Ribes Nigrum]

I'm feeling uncomfortable with the cancellation of the earnings call. BlackBerry is really going to the borders of the regulations here. I know they still have the ER available, but that's mandatory.

I'm just hoping for a better bid...


It's a beautiful stock price red Q5! Buy one! Help us go green!

[m0de25]

Hey m0de25!!!

Thanks for those kind words, I mentioned in a post a few minutes ago that the mods have my back just like many of you do. This one guy is a bit "different" and probably needs a hug or something. I let it roll off as he is the one who is stuck in a bad place. I read your mesaage about leaving this investment, this one has not been a "normal" company operating under normal media scrutiny, it might be the hardest trade to succeed at, in a long time although those of us who were in TSLA and/or NFLX would say we aren't any different. CB won't let me give out any more "Thanks" and I didn't feel good leaving a "Like" for such wonderful comments on your part. Take care and I assure you we will cross paths again!

Awesome! Looking forward to seeing how this all plays out. Have a good one!

[bigbbrybeliever]

[B] It is extremely rare that an aggressive bid to take out a company is not followed up by some heavy buying of the common shares. Prem should have been loading up here to protect his average cost basis but he himself is implying that he is standing on those $ 17.00/shr purchases going into what others are getting for $ 9.00/shr. He is the odd man out so to speak and that's some strange business. Either way, he is a smart man and if he thinks he is on the same footing as all the other players who are in at a major discount to him, so be it. I have to think about why he would do that. I believe he is so confident that a counter bid would have to be much higher in order for them to win the auction process, he feels his 10% of the company is enough to say "no" to just about any offer. If we knew how much debt there was in his deal, we would know how much he would own of BlackBerry and then it would all make sense. For instance, he could end up with 51% ownership and a ton of debt out of all of this, we may never know. That would explain why he is not buying shares today.

I always ask the question, " at what price would Prem give up his shares?" If you could answer that question you would know what to do tomorrow.

Morgan, following is just my own thinking or speculations:

1. Prem is already a very rich man. The last thing he needs in rest of his life is law suit against him. So he needs to come out clean in this buyout deal.
2. Because of (1), I am not sure whether he is allowed to buy more shares from the market after announcing the intent letter without future legal problem. Or at least he thinks that he may get into some legal issue if he does that.

3. From the news, it seems that Prem will use his current 10% stake to own roughly 33% of the company after it goes privater. If he can stabilize the service revenue at $3.2 annually ($800 million per Q) with GM of 80% and cut the current cost ($4.2 billion) by half to $2.1 billion, then the company can make $460 million a year. How much will a company worth with $460 million net profit at 80% gross margin? It will definitely much more than $4.7 billion price paid for the company. In this case, all other assets, such as existing cash, patents and BBM, come free to him. In my point of view, with 2 or 3 years, BBM may gain 500 million users (desktop + mobiles). This can become another social media subsidiary that worth a few billions. Let us assume that after 5 years, when adding every together, the company will be re-listed with IPO valued at $20 billion. His 33% then will be worth $6.6 billion against his actual cost about $920 million. In this case, he is still making lot money.
3. From his statement made today, I got the feeling that he values his personal reputation much more than money. Therefore, he does not want to play around to maximize his gain in $ but want people remember how great he is a person who saved the #1 Canadian tech company and kept the company inside Canada.

The above three reasons may explain why he is doing nothing to increase his shares at the price lower than $9.

[morganplus8]

This one is for you Morgan! Ipanema Beach, Rio



Posted via CB10

Now that ticks me off because I don't have clearance to fly yet!! Nice! We are going to make our first trip South some time in Feb 2014 if all goes well in the Fall. Antigua is the target and this should have been where we meet up for the $ 100 party! We can still hit that $ 100 level, just not with this stock. So it takes a bit longer, big deal. We are two trades away from that milestone. Thanks

[_dimi_]

Now that ticks me off because I don't have clearance to fly yet!! Nice! We are going to make our first trip South some time in Feb 2014 if all goes well in the Fall. Antigua is the target and this should have been where we meet up for the $ 100 party! We can still hit that $ 100 level, just not with this stock. So it takes a bit longer, big deal. We are two trades away from that milestone. Thanks

Just investigating strategic options for now (sounds familiar eh?) I've got the feeling I'll be back more often so no worries. I'll wait for BBRY and that clearance

Posted via CB10

[Kid Vibe]

Looks like Prem decided to answer the media ASAP. Something TH never really tried to do... Nice. It is tempting watching from the sidelines, as now it seems there is a very good chance the floor is 9... Hmm.

Anyways, my girlfriend *wink* just finished starring in my new music video... Enjoy.

[morganplus8]

Morgan, following is just my own thinking or speculations:

1. Prem is already a very rich man. The last thing he needs in rest of his life is law suit against him. So he needs to come out clean in this buyout deal.
2. Because of (1), I am not sure whether he is allowed to buy more shares from the market after announcing the intent letter without future legal problem. Or at least he thinks that he may get into some legal issue if he does that.

3. From the news, it seems that Prem will use his current 10% stake to own roughly 33% of the company after it goes privater. If he can stabilize the service revenue at $3.2 annually ($800 million per Q) with GM of 80% and cut the current cost ($4.2 billion) by half to $2.1 billion, then the company can make $460 million a year. How much will a company worth with $460 million net profit at 80% gross margin? It will definitely much more than $4.7 billion price paid for the company. In this case, all other assets, such as existing cash, patents and BBM, come free to him. In my point of view, with 2 or 3 years, BBM may gain 500 million users (desktop + mobiles). This can become another social media subsidiary that worth a few billions. Let us assume that after 5 years, when adding every together, the company will be re-listed with IPO valued at $20 billion. His 33% then will be worth $6.6 billion against his actual cost about $920 million. In this case, he is still making lot money.
3. From his statement made today, I got the feeling that he values his personal reputation much more than money. Therefore, he does not want to play around to maximize his gain in $ but want people remember how great he is a person who saved the #1 Canadian tech company and kept the company inside Canada.

The above three reasons may explain why he is doing nothing to increase his shares at the price lower than $9.

I have to go but that was extremely well thought out. His reputation is at stake here and the price that he will pay for the company isn't nearly as important as how well they formulate the plan and develop the business model. He can lose far more than $ 500 million (buck a share) trying to do the impossible here. He needs to execute this plan correctly the first time around. This is something that the current management failed at. He can buy stock as soon as he announces that he intends to purchase the company at a set price. It isn't him playing with the stock that gets it to $ 8.00/shr its the arbs. He doesn't want to buy stock which is a positive sign that he feels the company can carry itself as a leveraged buyout deal. You have some great thoughts in all of that.

[_dimi_]

Looks like Prem decided to answer the media ASAP. Something TH never really tried to do... Nice. It is tempting watching from the sidelines, as now it seems there is a very good chance the floor is 9... Hmm.

Anyways, my girlfriend *wink* just finished starring in my new music video... Enjoy.

Very good!! If you get to DJ in Belgium, Netherlands or UK let me know



Posted via CB10

[chrysaurora]

OFF-TOPIC
This is the first time I ever purchased stocks and (like a fool) I went ahead and purchased OPTIONS instead. Strike 35, Expiring Jan 2014. Well, I've now lost 100% of my investment. BlackBerry was already high-risk/high-reward stock and I made the risk even larger by doing options, instead of stocks

Anyway -- for those who are LEAVING this thread, I've created a BBM channel - C00121DBA - check it out. Let's keep in touch and share knowledge and tips.

In fact, my plan is --- now that I've lost 100% of my investment :'( I think the best thing I can do is to take it in stride and move onwards by starting a brand-new portfolio with $1,000 . Well, I already started it couple of days ago. I have now purchased (options) for HALO expiring in March 2014. My strike price is $11 .

By the way, 100% of my investment was ALL my savings from last 3 years of work etc. So, it'd take a a lot of trades to grow my $1000 big enough to recoup BBRY losses; and who knows how many (more) times I am going to stumble and fail again though. But I guess that's part of learning. Fortunately, I've no dependents so I guess it's much easier for me to risk my my life-savings, start over and over!

On my BBM Channel (C00121DBA) - I'll post regular updates on how my $1,000 portfolio is doing and I'd encourage anyone who is interested to share their updates/thoughts as well.



Cheers,
Chrys

[Superfly_FR]

Such in a hurry I cannot read everything.
My take as of date, all IMHO and purely speculative.

E.R cancellation spots 2 main things.
1/ Deal is set to proceed, there might be several bidders AND they might form an alliance. As I wrote before, I believe in a complex "private + spin off (BBM) + Equity partners + Patents licensing" The surprise guest that fits most is still MSFT IMHO.
2/ Thor is out. You hate this guy, I don't (I believe he did nothing but what he's been hired for). But BOD has to change for psychological effect. Mike should be aboard (CTO ?)

Watch the timing. In this story, all was about timing. Add human factor. Shake.
Make your mind

[mset]

Apps will still come.

So you're saying that if BBRY is still in the business of manufacturing handsets in 12 to 18 months, something that most observers think is an impossibility, app developers who create apps for the mass market will decide to suddenly start writing for BB10? After deciding not to write for it over the past 18 months (as long as BBRY has been lobbying them)? Even though this hypothetical handset business will, as BBRY has said last week, involve only 'enterprise and prosumer' users?

There seems to be no earthly reason why this should be the case. Can you explain your reasoning here?

[Superfly_FR]

So you're saying that if BBRY is still in the business of manufacturing handsets in 12 to 18 months, something that most observers think is an impossibility, app developers who create apps for the mass market will decide to suddenly start writing for BB10? After deciding not to write for it over the past 18 months (as long as BBRY has been lobbying them)? Even though this hypothetical handset business will, as BBRY has said last week, involve only 'enterprise and prosumer' users?

There seems to be no earthly reason why this should be the case. Can you explain your reasoning here?

Not in the mass market. For enterprises. Where money sits. Where an app worth up to $10 a CAL ... That's where I'm going.

[cgk]

If they have cancelled the Earnings Call - can someone get a proof of life picture of Heins?

[chrysaurora]

app developers who create apps for the mass market will decide to suddenly start writing for BB10? After deciding not to write for it over the past 18 months (as long as BBRY has been lobbying them)? Even though this hypothetical handset business will, as BBRY has said last week, involve only 'enterprise and prosumer' users?

There seems to be no earthly reason why this should be the case. Can you explain your reasoning here?

More top brand apps and games coming to the BlackBerry 10 platform! | CrackBerry.com

Security and Compliance - Cellcrypt Mobile, CommonDesk Compliance Engine, Fixmo Sentinel, Retain for BlackBerry Powered by GWAVA, RSA SecurID Software Token and SafeNet MobilePASS and SafeNet Authentication Service (SAS)

Entertainment and Multimedia - ABC, ABC Family, Discovery, E! Online, GMM TV, History App, Hype Machine, KK Box, KlikMusik, MTV Coke Studio, NBC, Quickflix, Sohu TV, Ultimate History Quiz, and Wowloud

Gaming - Angry Birds-GO!, Bad Piggies, Despicable Me: Minion Rush, Doodle Jump, Icy Tower Classic, Icy Tower 2, Real Racing 3 for BlackBerry 10 and The Sims FreePlay for BlackBerry 10

Lifestyle and Sports - CBS Sports App, Kereta Api Indonesia, Kingsoft Powerword, MTV Nightfinder, The Perfect Year App by InsideHook, Qoo10, SBS Transit, Star Health and Zalora

News and Publications - Channel NewsAsia, Flipboard, FTChinese.com, Her World Indonesia, Infokomputer for BlackBerry, MSN App and Shanghai Daily

Social - Kaixin, QQ, Sina Weibo, and WeChat

[Kid Vibe]

If they have cancelled the Earnings Call - can someone get a proof of life picture of Heins?

I think he is busy spending his 56 million dollars... lol

[Superfly_FR]

Ladies and gents, let me introduce (kinda, more likely "bridge-like") BBM for desktop
From Bla1ze : BBM on the desktop gets a BlackBerry Jam Asia demo | CrackBerry.com



Oh, wait ... what OS is that ?
I had a dream ....

[cgk]

Ladies and gents, let me introduce (kinda, more likely "bridge-like") BBM for desktop
From Bla1ze : BBM on the desktop gets a BlackBerry Jam Asia demo | CrackBerry.com



Oh, wait ... what OS is that ?
I had a dream ....

The mainstream desktop OS it had to be on? What you thought they were going to say "coming soon to Mint linux!"

[cgk]

Blair is busy doing what we in the UK call a 'reverse ferret':

What we know now is that Thorsten Heins, who in the euphoria of the Q10 launch had boldly claimed that BlackBerry would sell "tens of millions" of its new phones, had learned that of 2.8 million BB10 devices shipped to carriers, only 0.6 million had sold through to end users. BlackBerry could quite properly account for those as sales as long as it had evidence the carriers were not going to return them, and by the time of quarterly release I am sure they had such evidence.

At the same time, BlackBerry must have had some evidence that the market for their devices was slowing down quickly, particularly for the Z10 model. And certainly they knew how many phones they had committed to buying from their suppliers.

At this point, Mr. Heins and his board of directors (if they knew) faced one of the decision points that separate strong leadership from weak and good companies from bad. The correct decision is the simple one. Tell the truth. As my dad used to say, it is easier to remember.

The truth they did not tell investors until it was forced on them as Q2 results were coming due for release was that they had made commitments to buy a lot more devices than they could sell and they were going to take a bath on them.

BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY): Memorandum To The BlackBerry Board Of Directors: Stop The Charade And Manage The Company - Seeking Alpha

[mset]

More top brand apps and games coming to the BlackBerry 10 platform! | CrackBerry.com]

I'm really sorry but...you're kidding, right? You're citing an article written by a CB staffer which says that these apps are 'committed'? This is your reasoning?

I feel badly, actually. I haven't read through this thread but I believe there are people here who have lost money after making decisions based on information in this thread. Their own fault, obviously, for not doing their own DD, but I feel badly nevertheless.

[mset]

OFF-TOPIC
This is the first time I ever purchased stocks and (like a fool) I went ahead and purchased OPTIONS

By the way, 100% of my investment was ALL my savings from last 3 years of work etc.

I'm sorry, I didn't see this until after posting the above.

Chrys, with respect...I don't think that you're going to get the cred here when we know this about you. Kudos to you for admitting something like this, but possibly you should stop posting information designed to inform others about your views on the stock? Especially when your source is a staffer at a fan site.

[Fuzzballz]

I guess I don't understand why people don't think Watsa can come up with the dough. I'd never heard of him before this saga, but people say he's the "Warren Buffett of Canada."

Well if Warren Buffett calls you up and tells you to empty your wallet, you empty your wallet. Warren Buffet could have this thing signed, sealed & delivered and still have time for an afternoon nap. If Watsa can't get it done then either 1) he's not so hot, or 2) BBRY is one of the most untouchable tech companies out there right now.