BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY) And Its Bizarre Sale Process

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BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) is likely to be broken up into segments as there are “bizarre” bids coming from the buyers, which are making it difficult to value the company, says a report from Bloomberg citing a Canadian pension fund that’s considering an offer.

BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY) And Its Bizarre Sale Process

Shares of the Canadian firm have dropped 11 percent to $8 per share after Fairfax Financial placed a bid to take the company private for $9.

Investors looking at individual segments to value BlackBerry

Alberta Investment Management Corp. Chief Executive Officer Leo de Bever said, “It’s the most bizarre sales process I’ve seen in a long time.”

He said that all proposals are being considered, but none of them make any sense. BlackBerry is also taking other bids after considering a proposed $4.7 billion offer from its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial. As per the contract between BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) and Fairfax, the former can look for other proposals up to November 4th while Fairfax Financial is busy arranging for funds.

Investors, on the other hand, are ascertaining the value of BlackBerry in individual parts. “We were looking at the individual assets because that’s how you understand the whole company,” said de Bever.

Investors feel that the current proposal will fail, resulting in the fall of the stock price to $8 per share, a decline of 10 percent from the $9 per share bid from Fairfax.

Potential buyers

Last week, Reuters reported that Cisco System Inc, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Samsung Electronic are among potential buyers of BlackBerry. Shares were up by almost 3.6 percent to $7.97 on October 7th with expectations that there might be other buyers interested in buying the faltering smartphone maker.

According to de Bever, Alberta Investment, which manages C$69 billion ($67 billion) for 310,000 current and retired government workers, may be a probable investor in BlackBerry if a company like Google gets involved.

Bever said that sale will be materialized when someone who really understands the assets of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) comes forward. He said that if pension funds are interested in investing in BlackBerry then they should do so by collaborating with private equity investors. However, he did not disclose the names of other investors that may be in talks with Fairfax and BlackBerry.

Lisette Kwong, a spokeswoman at BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB), said that BlackBerry will not disclose any developments until a decision is reached with respect to the current transaction, or a review of strategic alternatives is concluded.

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