Shareholders are breathing once more as the smartphone manufacturer inks a deal for its sale.
BlackBerry has finally struck a deal that is topping technology news headlines, as a consortium that is lead by its largest shareholder – Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. – made an offer that it could not refuse.
The deal couldn’t come at a better time, stopping the downward spiral of the company’s share price.
Trading of the BlackBerry stocks came to a dead halt when it accepted an offer to be bought out by the consortium, led by the Canadian company. This sale will purchase the withering smartphone manufacturer for $9 (US) per share, which was above the price at which the stocks were being sold when they stopped trading. That said, this technology news figure is also well below the price at which the stocks were being sold before they began their freefall on Friday.
This technology news arrived just after the company declared its devastating second quarter losses.
On Friday, the company started a complete meltdown of its share prices when it released the highly unpleasant technology news in which it stated that it had lost $1 billion in sales during the second quarter.
The technology news headlines have been heavily focused on BlackBerry, lately, as it unexpectedly launched a new handset and made its BBM messenger service available to Android and iOS based device users. Even these moves couldn’t come close to rescuing the company as it continued its rapid downward slide. Analysts and industry experts were releasing dozens of predictions regarding the future of the company, from sale to rebuilding itself, and from bankruptcy to breaking itself up and selling off the pieces.
Finally, the light shone at the end of the tunnel as the more definitive technology news was announced to reveal that Blackberry would, indeed, be sold, for an estimated $4.7 billion, all in cash. The Fairfax shares will also be applied against the deal. This could mean that there is a promising private sector future ahead of the tech company, once more, though the precise details of that future have yet to be known.
