Berry Squash
RE: BlackBerry Buyout Squashed; New Deal Yields $1 Billion, New CEO
In relation to my previous blog post on Blackberry’s potential buyout, it turns out that Fairfax Financial has decided to scale down on the deal as stated in Troy Wolverton’s blog post on Blackberry.
Fairfax Financial CEO Prem Watsa
According to his blog post, Fairfax decided to not go forward with the buyout, because it could not find and convince other potential investing partners for Blackberry. I found this interesting because some companies, such as Facebook and Amazon, have been rumoured to take interest in buying Blackberry, as opposed to banks such as BMO and Bank of America which Fairfax was targeting for. Reasons that would contribute to this divergence on the perspective of Blackberry are, very possibly, the way that banks and social media companies function very differently and have certain values that set them apart from each other.
Nevertheless, whether buyout will be secured or not, the “New Deal” between Blackberry and Fairfax involves getting a new temporary CEO, John Chen. Whether this is a good choice or not is uncertain, but implementing a new CEO has definite risks and this decision itself will invoke change in the company’s culture and overall structure.
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Works Cited
“Fairfax Financial CEO Prem Watsa.” The Financial Post. Bloomberg, 24. Sept. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Wolverton, Troy. “BlackBerry Buyout Squashed; New Deal Yields $1 Billion, New CEO.” Silicon Beat. SilliconBeat,4 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.