BlackBerry has long been a company in crisis and the topic of acquisition has been up for discussion for quite some time. Now, BlackBerry has been acquired by the investment firm Fairfax Finanical Holdings for an amount of 4.7 billion USD.
BlackBerry has been less than successful during the last years and has encountered several troublesome issues related to its products and finances. The company first of all put a lot of efforts into the BlackBerry Q10 and Z10 which simply has become massive failures. This certainly was disappointing and the market share of BlackBerry is only just over 4%. Finally, yesterday, BlackBerry published its second quarterly report which shows a massive loss of 1 billion USD. All the above events indicate clearly a company in distress and many has speculated if BlackBerry would be acquired soon in order to have both the economical muscles as well as the knowledge to turn itself from a massive sinking ship into an agile and profitable company.
On Monday, September 23, 2013, it was announced that the Canadian investment firm known as Fairfax Financial Holdings has decided to acquire BlackBerry for a total amount of 4.7 billion USD. In particular, the firm is offering to pay BlackBerry 9 USD per share. Following the announcement, BlackBerry has also stated that they have accepted the offer and the transaction is expected to take place very soon.
It is unclear as of now what Fairfax Financial Holdings have in mind, however, at the present situation, BlackBerry really needs all the help in can get if it is to survive and again turn to profit.
No comments:
Post a Comment