Blackberry, the Canadian smartphone maker, is in the midst of a bidding war which will determine the fate of the company.
Monday November 3rd is the deadline for any interested parties.
There are only a few interested candidates that are in a position to make an offer, including its biggest stakeholder and both of the people that founded the company .
In September, Fairfax Financial, which owns about 10 per cent of BlackBerry, made a $4.7-billion bid and BlackBerry gave them seven weeks to secure financing.
However, according to Bloomberg, the company has not managed to secure the financing it needs to make the bid official. If BlackBerry accepts another bid they would owe Fairrfax Financial a $157 million breakup fee.
The founders of the company, Doug Fregin and Mike Lazaridis, are making a separate bid through a partnership with the investment firm Cerberus Capital Management LP and the cellphone chip maker Qualcomm Inc.
In 2004 Cerberus helped prevent Air Canada from bankruptcy and in 2008 the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce sold part of its structured credit portfolio to Cerberus for $1.05-billion – in a move to back away from the U.S. mortgage crisis.
However, a foreign takeover is also possible (which triggers national security concerns), with the Chinese computer company Lenovo saying that they may make a bid. The chief executive of Lenovo, Yang Yuanqing, has recently expressed interest in the company.
Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst, said: “We are finally going to know who will, or who won’t, be bidding on this company. It’s really a fish-or-cut-bait day.”
Market Business News recently reported that BlackBerry lost $965 million during the second quarter of this year, after a severe fall in sales.
In addition, Blackberry recently announced that it will cut 40% of its workforce globally.
On Friday BlackBerry shares dropped 2 percent on Friday to $7.77.