Slashdot Mirror
BlackBerry Posts $4.4 Billion Loss, Will Outsource To Foxconn
iONiUM writes "Today BlackBerry announced a $4.4 billion loss, and a deal with Foxconn to outsource hardware manufacturing. One interesting stat is that 75% of sales were actually older BB7 devices. That said, CEO John Chen says, 'We are very much alive, thank you.' He adds, 'Our "for sale" sign has been taken down and we are here to stay. BlackBerry recently announced it has entered into an agreement to receive a strategic investment from Fairfax Financial and other institutional investors, which represents a vote of confidence in the future of BlackBerry.'"
. . . or they took down the sign because they couldn't find a buyer . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Strategic investment means somebody from the outside taking a big stake in the company.
Fairfax Financial is a insurance company and the biggest owner of BlackBerry shares. The original idea was that FairFax and some partners would do a buy out of all the existing shares for 4.7b and take BlackBerry private – like what Dell did with Dell inc. this year. That fell through when Fairfax couldn’t find any partners who were willing to up the cash. Instead BlackBerry issued 1b in convertible debt (bonds that can be converted to stock – all the downside protection of debt and all of the upside of stock ownership.) with FairFax buying 250m of that debt.
Um...
BlackBerry is a Canadian company.