[NotGoodIMO]

In all reality, I'm thinking that there won't be any sort of lawsuit. Watsa is a pretty smart guy and I just can't imagine him getting involved with any sort of insider manipulation. Especially with a company that is being so closely watched by every financial institution out there.

Posted via CB10

The way all this happened, it looks like manipulation. I mean, how bad someone can really manage a company? These guys are screwing up everything. I am going to be very honest, any rookie can run better company than these idi*ts.

[Kid Vibe]

The way all this happened, it looks like manipulation. I mean, how bad someone can really manage a company? These guys are screwing up everything. I am going to be very honest, any rookie can run better company than these idi*ts.

To be fair, TH was kind of on a roll from Jan to pre June ER... than **** hit the fan and he disappeared... that mofo.

[unbreakablej]

Watch this video BlackBerry Gets Tentative $4.7 Billion Deal to Go Private - Bloomberg

Fairfax does not have the money to buy Blackberry and if they cannot find the financing and the deal does not go through, they still get $157 millions from BB...

I would expect that he will only get the money if the deal falls out cos BB decided not to go through with it/found another buyer? It will not make sense for him to pull out and still get the money.

[NotGoodIMO]

This is why I think it's pure manipulation. If Watsa thinks $9 dollar is fair value for the stock then why didn't he sell the stock at $12 dollar or more, considering he had inside information about how the company is doing. The precipitous decline of the share price and sudden buyout offer point to manipulation, nothing else.

[NotGoodIMO]

Apple is really smart how they report this. The first days' sales are incredible even if they're not all delivered on the first day. The phones are distributed over a month. With the huge lines, you're very likely to buy in the store even if you can't have it that day, which guarantees the sale. After the first few days, sales drop off rapidly, otherwise Apple would be reporting 100's of millions in a quarter.

This isn't to excuse BlackBerry for poor marketing and execution; it's just to say Apple is very smart how they report things.

Don't worry Apple's demise will come too. Nothing stays at the top forever. In fact I don't know why people are buying this garbage any more and that too standing in line etc. One big difference between Apple and Blackberry is that being an American company, Apple is very loud about what it does and everyone hears about it. We all know how Blackberry does things, most journalists still think you can't browse on Blackberry phones. That's how pathetic Blackberry management is in launching Blackberry phones.

[Komoto]

i just cant help but feel like the whole thing has been a sand bagging attempt to get the price down to here for the last two quarters. The timing of events over the last 2 weeks is just way too coincidental. no one can screw up so badly.

I am not going cry about it, i said over a year ago that this was one of the risks of investing in BBRY.

I still think the company is worth considerably more than 9 dollars/share.

I guess Prem had to hedge his risks. He forces offers to come in from other companies, in a worse case scenario he takes the company at 9 dollars/share if no one else comes up with an offer. I think he knows the true value of it.

I guess we can just hope that a number of companies now start some sort of bidding war. Lenovo, samsung, microsoft, ibm, cisco...

What do you guys think?

[Kid Vibe]

i just cant help but feel like the whole thing has been a sand bagging attempt to get the price down to here for the last two quarters. The timing of events over the last 2 weeks is just way too coincidental. no one can screw up so badly.

I am not going cry about it, i said over a year ago that this was one of the risks of investing in BBRY.

I still think the company is worth considerably more than 9 dollars/share.

I guess Prem had to hedge his risks. He forces offers to come in from other companies, in a worse case scenario he takes the company at 9 dollars/share if no one else comes up with an offer. I think he knows the true value of it.

I guess we can just hope that a number of companies now start some sort of bidding war. Lenovo, samsung, microsoft, ibm, cisco...

What do you guys think?

This is possible, anything is possibe. Stock could be 1 dollar tomorrow and bought out by SEGA.

Prem has probably loaded up on shares like nobody's business recently and lowered his AVG. He gave a lowball offer so others may step in and bump up the SP and offer a price he hopes surpasses his AVG... Just my nonsense thinking. Either way, I think he wins, either he sells at a higher SP or buys the company cheap and sells it for parts.

[richardat]

The whole thread is a cautionary tale on the perils of being emotionally attached to your investment. Also on the dangers of confirmation bias. They only listened to opinions which supported their own wishes, and ignored, literally, any contrary opinions. Someone could write a case study about it. If certainly love to read it.

It seems I made a few posts in a couple of day in September.... Your post made me look at my posts....this was the first:

09-26-2012, 06:14 PM
#781 Report Post
Quote Originally Posted by pooger View Post
this thread makes me chuckle
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________________
LOL. It doesn't actually make me laugh, it makes me cringe on so many levels.

It's an expression of love and loyalty for an impersonal corporate entity. It's an expression of emotional investing. It's an expression of ill-advised, blindly optimistic, interpretations. It is an expression of misread metrics.....it is at all at once: beautiful, misguided, stupid, and passionate. As love often is.
Last edited by richardat; 09-26-2012 at 06:19 PM.

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___

I stand by my post. The OP of that thread - who I consider an ignorant fool - to be blunt, wrote a reply starting with the nasty:

"We're so glad you bring such insightful informations to leverage this thread to the Pantheon of useful comments ... nahhh."

He then went on to claim I was biased, while he was objective, and that he had followed RIM, understood RIM and the market, and that he was able to detect changes and evaluate RIM properly - being an entrepreneur! He claimed I was probably only reading things which confirmed my bias!!! Ironic, when reading your post here notafanboy!

As if I required reading their bible (Seeking Alpha) to evaluate the irrationality of their arguments! ;-)

I remember going back a couple times just to read, and being horrified by watching people being encouraged to invest - with the most irrational and convoluted investment reasoning I've ever seen. I couldn't stand it anymore and haven't gone back until today.

So by the way, thanks for liking my OP there, notafanboy....LOL

[cgk]

Dunno why you guys are being *****... some of those who posted TA charts have made more money off this stock than probably 99% of the members here. They were just explaining to us their strategy.

Oh man they have you well and truly taken in, if I tell you I have a million pounds in my house, I have it in my house right?

Go back and re-read the TA posts, they always claim the stock is going up, they always claim that resistance is going to be broken - then notice that the reality distortion field means that everyone's memory is wiped everyday when it doesn't happen. Here's an example:

We have to stay within the green channel lines and make our way to $ 15.75/shr where the biggest decision the bulls have made in months, occurs. Can we break through this time and get above the downtrend line? Everything is in place, a new product, a weak Samsung product, a weak AAPL stock, and the RSI is set to take us to $ 18.00/shr here. If we can get through, and hold the $ 15.75/shr resistance point, we will be starting a whole new level of trading range here, something like $ 15.00/shr as the base and $ 18.00 as the high until news drives us higher

and

We are looking at $ 17.18/shr very quickly, with a challenge of the recent highs at $ 18.32/shr. We can't get much higher than that as the RSI will be in way over-bought territory for a couple of weeks. After that, the maximum high would be breaking into the $ 20.00/s targeting $ 22.50/shr. The reason this is going to be a large move is the fact that the pennant formation held the stock back for a couple of months now. Shorts aren't going to like this move at all.

Even last week, the TA guys were claiming the stock would be about $14 this week - it's not. They claimed the layoff stories were lies - they were true, they claimed that the massive writeoff of phones was a lie - it was true.

If you don't want to do that, write this down - the current claim is that $9 per share is just the start and it is sure to go much much higher - see what the price is when it's sold in a few weeks and compare and contrast.

[crucial bbq]

If you are angry, this must be your first foray into stocks. This is the nature of the beast and I would be happy to be getting $9 a share no matter at what price I bought in. Besides, I cannot think of one financial advisor who would have recommended Brry to anyone, even when things where briefly on the up.

[Kennedy.L]

Exactly! WTF 9!?! Paid around 11 for my 1000 shares

Posted via CB10

man you ballin! I thought my 600 was substantial.

I hope you know the principal of a diversified portfolio. You know the whole 'not all your eggs in one basket' concept.

[world traveler and former ceo]

This lowball offer is just establishing a floor .. hopefully, the serious players now have a chance to move in with higher bids, and still walk away with assets at super discount prices ...

[CrackedBarry]

This lowball offer is just establishing a floor .. hopefully, the serious players now have a chance to move in with higher bids, and still walk away with assets at super discount prices ...

And if they don't? According to the press there hasn't been much interest. And if other parties would be interested, you would think they would have made a move when the price was around 5-6$.

What would you say, if the price stays where it is?

[Kid Vibe]

C'mon guys, we all know this is going over 15...

[heymaggie]

The talk of the eight new contracts coming up reminds me of the sales guys in Glengarry Glen Ross talking about "the leads".

[qbnkelt]

Prem Watsa himself said it was worth $40 a share. But he's not stupid. Let's hope this is the first of many offers. Don't count on it though.

With his stocks and those that Lazaridis still own they can probably block any other offers.

[cgk]

The talk of the eight new contracts coming up reminds me of the sales guys in Glengarry Glen Ross talking about "the leads".

Or that time that based on someone visiting a single store, everyone bought into the item that the q10 was going to sell tens of millions of units...

[world traveler and former ceo]

In the next six weeks, blackberry. An release BBM4ALL, os 10.2 and the z30.. all positives while other bidders can come forward with better and more serious offers...

Surely this super low ball offer can not go unchallenged.....

Posted via CB10

[gillaz]

Not seeing $4.7 billion as a fair valuation. Nokia's handset business just went to Microsoft for $7.2 and that did not include any patents, they get the use of Nokia's patents without royalties for 10 years but the ownership of the patents remain with Nokia, and no enterprise or mobile device management offerings which account for $800+ million per quarter in revenue at BlackBerry. Not to mention that Nokia's handset sales were propped up greatly by Microsoft's marketing muscle and advertising dollars. Not that BlackBerry's sales are great but they stand on their own and are not attributed to outside spending.

its irrelevant how Nokia got the money to spend on marketing, it was used wisely and there were signs of growth. Its the total opposite for BB, that's why there is a huge difference in value.

[mrabody]

To all those still holding Blackberry shares, the advice my Mom likes to give is "better to be a little pig than a big pig". In other words better to take a small profit than hold out for a big one that will never come. If you bought at $6 last year, then you should have sold your shares months ago.

I bought Blackberry after the June earnings fiasco and sold my shares a couple of weeks ago when there were rumours of buyouts and the price jumped a bit. Ok so it wasn't a massive profit but it and the CDTI I sold at the same time (bought $1.24 sold for $1.60) mostly covered the bath I took on Potash Corp.

[MPF94025]

Yes, to say the least. I've started a separate thread asking if Heins and Stymiest should yield their titles at QE report later this week. It would be signs of a fresh start.

[mrabody]

Watch this video BlackBerry Gets Tentative $4.7 Billion Deal to Go Private - Bloomberg

Fairfax does not have the money to buy Blackberry and if they cannot find the financing and the deal does not go through, they still get $157 millions from BB...

Fairfax will get the financing. Think about it for a minute. They've offered $4.7B. For that they'll get $2.6B cash so in effect they're paying $2.1B. But as I understand it Fairfax is rolling their 10% shareholding into the deal so that's another near $500M knocked off the financing requirements so now they only need to find $1.6B.

For that they getting a bunch inventory that has just been written off - it's now valued at $0 for accounting purposes but it's still sellable particularly when it's offered to phone companies super cheap and they can blow it out the door at much reduced prices - say Fairfax sells it on for 25% of its original value - there's $250M banked. They still have service revenue coming in which even if they quit selling handsets immediately would continue for a couple of years at least. According to Friday's statement it was near $800M this quarter- so even if it shrinks rapidly over the next year it's still a tidy sum that is coming in. They have patents which have a value if sold, but which may have a further value should Fairfax decide to pursue a strategy of agressive patent litigation (and if they close down the handset business, this is a great strategy as they wouldn't be able be sued by other handset makers for infringing on their patents) and possibly licensing. They have buildings and plant and other assets. They still have OS10, BBM, BES, and QNX all of which have value. At the price they are offering Fairfax can't lose money and financing will follow.

[M65c02]

A lot of people suggested if the company went private, it would be be worth $13 to $15 a share on buyout. Apparently not. Blackberry shareholders got a raw deal.

"A lot of people'": H'mm, a lot of people also have vested interest in keeping the stock propped and trying to put into the marketplace either ill-informed or negative information for the lottery and "penny stock traders" to support there equity positions. Half of all the float was still shorted even as BB stock was already pummeled 90% over recent years. The vultures had long, long since arrived and started to nibble around July 1, if not before--vultures, remember, surround but won't bite until actual death. BTW, Fairfax may still have to pay more but I don't see that as likely as Fairfax knows BB and no one legit wants to tangle w/Fairfax in this mess. (Hey, I suppose an arbitrager could try to manipulate BB for a quick $2-3/share but it would risk that Fairfax would simply walk and then be left holding a bag of worms.)

Not sure what you?re talking about. The phones are good and the OS is pretty solid. If there is anything specific that you're talking about, post about it. The BBM rollout sucked...nothing else to say about that.

Back to the point, however, aren't BlackBerry's patents worth a whole lot more than $4.7 billion? Whether Fairfax decides to break the company apart and sell it off or not, the value is still there, no? Am I missing something?

No, the phones may be good and OS10 interesting (solid is an adj too strong) but those kind euphemisms don't sell phones. Not to start an argument where inevitably someone influenced more by their shareholdings than common sense will disagree: True, the Z had an indisputable terrible roll-out marketing intro in the Spring. BUT I talk from grand corporate experience with the Z--and certainly its documented enough in CB and elsewhere, OS10 simply wasn't ready for prime time (as I coined back in Spring). Of course, we need only look at OS10 unit sales . . . there were none, literally none (at least rounded to the nearest % of total mkt sales) not only on roll-out but no change--even a decline--during the summer. Another phrase used in CB and elsewhere: One need not await the monthly sales figures, one only need look on the street to realize that OS10 wasn't selling.

As for the Q, perhaps it should have come out prior to the Z but I can see a strategy also justifying its June release. No scenario would have allowed combined Z and Q sales any better regardless of introduction order. The real scourge, again, was that OS10 was no where near ready and, frankly,only in the past few weeks has it become only respectable--still not a leader or superstar--for intense and comprehensive business use--i.e., nearing a tool. ... But in the opinion of the marketplace (at best), "Too little too late." (Of course, sales were going to drop even further--to maybe even net negative some weeks--as BB formally announced (really confirmed) it was looking to sell...and obviously soon.)

NO, as for expectations of price: The $4.7B is almost exactly to the penny what it should be today. Actually, there's a good argument for a $200-500mm overpayment. I'm sure that BB could be purchased under $4B by the end of October as the marketplace shut out BB even more (if that's possible) and the price of BB dropped to the $6-$8 range. But, remember, Fairfax holds a BB investment (and good knowledge of BB workings including value of BB patents) so their purchasing dynamic is much different than that of a cold sale . . . and there was no surprise but that they would probably make the first (and only?) offer.

A list should be compiled of the "experts" around here swearing the market was wrong and they had a $12-15 / share valuation. These people should never be trusted.

"Experts", we try to never use that word especially when trading stock. First, the market will value a company for its worth today, or maybe tomorrow which should be a similar number. Second, you had about half of all the float in BB shorted ... do you think those--mostly institutions--have any knowledge?! Third, understand that many, many of these so called experts have a vested interest in supporting stocks pursuant to positions held by their institutional clients--whether formal relations or informal to keep it pseudo-legal. (If I need to say more then . . . well, this is penny stock trading 101....move on to the lottery.) Fourth, don't be pulled into the classic investor trap where you trade with emotion or hear what you want to hear.

I own some shares. A minor irritation. As QBNKELT says I was willing to lose it.
But I also bought a lot more heavily into ARM Holdings and Qualcomm just before the iPhone 4 hit. You lose some and hopefully you win others as is the case for me. Though I will say something seems fishy with pre releasing earnings and knocking 2.00 a share almost off the stock. Then announcing a discounted bid at 9.00. Whatever. Eff em if some wrong doing is uncovered.
Z10STL100-4/10.2.0.1443

NO, you're wrong about the pre-release. BB was required to pre-release and may well have found deep trouble from regulators had they not. Obviously Fairfax, and a couple others, were looking at purchase of BB and BB, aware that a sale was imminent concurrent with the financials, simply released news anyone that follows the industry was mostly aware of anyway. Obviously Fairfax, as well as other suitors, had a good idea of the poor BB earnings. Heck, you had to have been an ostrich in the outback w/o a smart phone not to know that the Sept financials would be worse than even June's disclosure: Industry unit sales had shown a decline even over June sales and several, if not most, carriers had dropped any recommendation for BB phones. Therefore, the pre-release was mostly perfunctory and in line with firm information already known by the public. Nevertheless, it was a shock that this didn't occur on Monday/today of this week rather than Friday but that's splitting hairs. Yet, it was clear some party would likely tender a formal letter of interest concurrent--just before or after--release of qtrlys. and this was likely supporting the price at around 10. [Note: BB had been on life support since June ... and that's when all support of the last of objective "real experts" stopped. Only a few day trader bloaks, hoping for a quick uptick for a couple of points profit remained in true support as the fundamentals were confirmed all but completely disappeared for BB by the June results.]

I means you only invest money you can afford to invest. Not money you need to pay your bills, your kids college, etc. And not your savings, at least not all of it in my opinion.

We often hear this comment said and for many still holding BB or reading this column, I'm sure this is sound advice. It also is sound advice for penny stock traders, playing the lottery, and dabbling with residential real estate for investment. But to take that advice, of course, is to admit that it's a crap shoot ... that, my friend, is called investing on emotion, or trading on pure speculation.

In actuality, many absolutely need to invest in the stock market for their kids college and retirement--unless perhaps a govt worker w/defined benefit plan. But if you're going to trade without understanding fundamentals of the company and industry, you may make money but it will be despite any knowledge. Except for day trading for an eighth pt. here or there, there was absolutely no rational reason to buy BB stock after June's report and losses (or gains) should have been cut long before. BB had been declining in free cash flow, couldn't support its products (nor its employees for that matter), and has no ability to keep up the R&D needed to survive. BUT, then again, there are some 50 different NY Lottery games and 100x that in Casinos, hey, play what you can afford to lose and live from the dreams.

I bought at $6.21, so $9 is still a profit for me. I think if this deal goes through, though, that the new owners could be facing a class action suit from former shareholders, and there might just be some merit in it. I'd love the company to succeed, but I don't particularly want to be defrauded for it to work.

When running around with this penny stock trading mentality, take the profit, don't look back, and run. BB is lucky to have Fairfax at $9 and that would never have happened if Fairfax didn't already own a stake. ... BB would have dropped soon to $6 or $7, then fallen off the cliff at $5 by next qtr, maybe lasted until early next year. (This will still happen if the Fairfax deal falls through.) Frankly, I'm shocked that a sale is being contemplated above $7-8, but Fairfax had to weigh its potential loss in "mark to market" of BB shares with its immediate purchase of what it hopes to split and double for profit. (BTW, no involvement here unless they think that they can at least double their investment in the next 3-4 years max.)

Hey, for the record, it's also possible that Fairfax might up their bid or another buyer/arbitrager jumps in the ring but, really, consider yourself lucky to profit here Thunder. I can put the list back up of company's once equally as proud as BB that also fell into the financial abyss: Not just similar but nearly exact same circumstances. And, if you like we can look at tech or non-tech cos. History simply repeats itself.

You can start by never sharing investing advice with your family, then you can attempt to file a class action lawsuit.

A general rule but, indeed, a mostly good one where decisions have been made on emotion !!

They don't need cash. They're doing this for the sake of stability. The catch is that they're now taking on debt. That makes them accountable to investment banks instead of shareholders. THAT might be a problem.

No, NO, No, NO, No: It is not what their current cash position is, per se, that matters to this type of co: While it is true that they don't have much debt, I surely would hope there would be little/no debt given the industry that they are in and their 25+ year history. (This is not a start up with a new idea.) THE real question is how much free cash is BB generating and, perhaps, is BB "cheating' on R&D. The first one we can answer: BIG PROBLEM. The second, well, there are four years with no results but for a generation (too) late OS10.

The cash drain is phenomenal !! ... BB might not (have) last(ed) another year given their current financial position--at least, and still be able to provide credible support to servicing current customers and marketing new phones.

How do you figure that? I've been following the "I support BBRY..." thread and based on their own postings, the gurus are losing money on the stock. And anyone who believed in their prognostications and acted on them are also losing a lot of money.

It's not even a case of you win some, you lose some. The gurus where reliably and consistently wrong most of the time. The TA charts the posted for some reason signalled a bullish movement 90% of the time. But if you look at the stock, it is more down that it is up. Even a monkey flipping a coin would have done better than the gurus.

A few weeks ago, there were some people asking for advice. They had a feeling that the stock price would drop at the next earnings report and they asked if it was a good idea to sell now and buy in after the earnings report. The chief chartist told them this was a bad idea, even saying that if they sold they would lose out on a $4 upside.

Of course we all know what happened last Friday and today. Instead of the predicted 35% gain, anyone who followed that advice would have lost 20%. That's a 55% swing.

The chief chartist posted a pretty graph on Friday morning, again with a bullish prediction. Then the stock was halted and the stock dropped 18%.

Was the chartist a Taurus, is that what you are trying to say!! LOL Ho-hum, there are as many "gurus" making as losing money: That's what trading stocks is about. The pension funds in Canada, a couple high risk hedge funds, and penny stock traders are taking the big losses here. But come on, you've been reading too late at night while forming your candlesticks. (I've got a book on the best charted numbers to choose in a lottery too..)

What predicted 50% gain? What so called guru? What background? What conflicts of interest? You're, even most monkeys knew that BB was going down by the hear. The industry compiled BB unit sales were already in and reflected less than 2mm (OS10) sold and even with a BB accounting pad to allow for 2.5mm OS10 devices...well it says it all... The free cash is negative and cash reserves have been drawn down. All this was known--and reported in CB and elsewhere--to be true even before the prelim release.. The stock should be at $3-4 plus a temporary support for cash balances maybe of another $3-4. The only way to unlock the cash, however, likely is to liquidate other assets and/or stop the ancillary bleeding by shutting down some of the core operations.

There were no credible forecasts for the stock to jump to $15 as institutional investors and especially pension funds were being forced to divest at an increasing rate (most were out or had lightened holdings extending back to decisions in 2012). There was, and still is, the possibility for someone to make noise about a buy-out at $15 but not since May has any sound financial logic supported a valuation over $10. Look for support in the fundamentals and conflicts of interest among any party forecasting $15: In this case, it simply can't be found with BB. You might have picked this info up, here, within CB--albeit perhaps having to focus on posts that were longer than five lines (and Kevin). Don't get caught in bed with analysts that have outside interests in those that make a market--they'll break your heart and wallet in the end.

Don't get me wrong. This wasn't a one time thing. It happened last ER as well. It happened practically every time the stock dipped down. When I get the time, I'll dig back and bring up the links. It's one of the most remarkable things I've seen in the internet. Extremely fascinating.

It also happened the last time Halley's Comet passed by the Earth.

It is not sold yet. It is a conditional offer.

That's right Peter, but shareholders better hope that this holds up and that BB hasn't even more bad news hidden that would otherwise keep Fairfax out, or to legally be entitled to reduce its offer price. Because one thing is for certain, while this transaction is going through due diligence and closing, the value of BB is not going to get stronger--even if some wayward investor chooses to add a couple points !! .... And anyone reading this blurb, if you rode this train wreck down, trade your BB stock the first chance you get whether taking a loss or gain...and stop talking about class (derivative) actions.
. . . .
Now, can we get back to talking about whether I'm ever going to get my contacts function to stop screwing up after six months with my Z10.

[notfanboy]

Epic post.

[kevinnugent]

Where is hurds when you need him most?