Following Fairfax Financial Holding’s preliminary bid early last week to buy out Blackberry Ltd, the public has seen a number of other big names getting involved in the bidding process for Blackberry Ltd. Some of those companies include SAP, Google, LG, Samsung, Intel, and Cisco as well as other private equity firms like Cerberus Capital Management. Despite BBRY’s recent degradation, companies are still intrigued by Blackberry’s still relatively large brand value and more importantly; their patents. Back in 2011 an analyst estimated the overall patents within Research in Motion to be worth $2.5 billion. That includes patents like that of the secured BBM network as well as the many other unique features within Blackberry devices. However there is concern from interested parties about the value of certain Blackberry assets (people have disputed the 2011 figure of $2.5 billion regarding the value of Blackberry Ltd. patents) and supposed misrepresentation from Blackberry executives. While this bidding process is ongoing there is also a class action lawsuit against Blackberry where stockholders claim to have lost money based on false statements from executives as a result of unsold Blackberry 10 devices. In terms of Blackberry’s process throughout this situation, it seems to be reasonably effective. Despite poor numbers and what some have called a lost cause the company has produced continued interest in what little they have left; their assets; patents, mainly. As well they’ve done so amid concern from outside analysts. Of course it helps when a Canadian billionaire is willing to start off the bidding with a $4.7 billion “bail out”, but even then Blackberry has effectively built on the interest that was started by Fairfax Financial Holdings. The rising interest has even increased stock prices over 4%.
Sources:
BlackBerry Ltd in talks with Cisco, Google and SAP about sale of parts or whole: sources
Sources say Fairfax has submitted draft of takeover offer but Cerberus not part of consortium, raising possibility of another offer”>Fairfax submits draft BlackBerry offer as spectre of rival bid looms
Research In Motion Patents Worth Just $2.5B, Analyst Says
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