The last part of this story isn't exactly correct. Blackberry has been shopping themselves around to a number of companies that Blackberry thinks could be interested. These other companies haven't expressed interest on their own.
No. What is generally being "whispered" is that none of the companies wanted the "whole thing". Their have been folks interested in parts, but nobody wanted the whole thing.
There would be few, if any, buyers for the whole thing if it was healthy. Distressed only makes it all that much harder to sell. Microsoft pealling off the other major distressed company largely in this space and billions of deep pockets to throw at fixing that is probably the last straw that broke the back. It doesn't help that they are yet again grasping at yet another tactic of break up now.
The concept that Cisco and some others may be interested in parts of the company are purely speculative on the parts of those who have been writing articles on this development. As far as I know, so far none of these companies have responded positively to any of this publicly.
Why would they drive up interest in the sub part they are about to buy. When out to buy a company generally don't advertise that ahead of time. That isn't going to get you a lower price.
Nor has there been any reliable reports of them doing so privately.
Cisco never did make any sense ( they seemed to be on people's lists because they were "big enough" to do it and have done major acquisitions in the past). . Samsung has made some crafted responses as to not interested in whole company. If there weren't interested in any of it they could have said.
As much as "sue everyone else" is the active strategy these days the patents are likely the most valuable piece that can be cleanly broken off. Remember BB was in the cabal with Microsoft and Apple that bought up the Nortel stuff so not only get the BB ones but get inoculation against the troll company they set up for the Nortel ones. Samsung is completely disinterested in that ? That doesn't seem likely. Nor various other shops that were in overlapping businesses with Nortel.
Nevertheless, Blackberry's stock has again been rising on all of this speculation. I'm wondering if it isn't a ruse on the part of Blackberry, and possibly Fairfax, with the stock price rise a hopefully result.
Fairfax doesn't want the price to rise over their offer. By all appearances they are having trouble raising the money to cover what they originally offered; let alone something even higher.
Far more likely the price will drop and Fairfax might buy what is left over at their now attractive price. Or some partner may jump in with Fairfax and buy the whole at a minor markup and they agree on how to chop up what is left.
I'm suspicious of everything happening around Blackberry. And Watsa right now, is not to be trusted, as he has lost literally billions on his failed investment in RIM over the years, and is desperate to get some of it back.
I suspect Farifax thought it would be easier to line up the money and construct a Canandian buy so this would have gone more smoothly and quickly. Probably isn't just Watsa/Farifax at this point as some of the vulture capital breakup folks are combing through BB books and they has zero interest in whole thing... just the break-up and salvage operation. The lower the stock price the more money they make.
