Fairfax
Financial Holdings has agreed to acquire BlackBerry in a deal worth $4.7 billion, both
companies announced Monday.
The
Toronto-based financial holdings conglomerate has agreed to pay $9 per share
for the beleaguered mobile company — a premium of about 9%. Shares of
BlackBerry were trading at $8.23 per share before a freeze was initiated.
It's not a
done deal yet: According to the terms of the agreement, Fairfax can walk away
at any time. Fairfax already owns approximately 10% of BlackBerry common
shares.
News of
the takeover comes two days after BlackBerry announced it was cutting 4,500 jobs about 35%
of its workforce — and taking a loss of nearly $1 billion in its second
quarter.
How the
mighty have fallen. At its peak in mid-2007, BlackBerry was worth more than
$100 billion. Should the transaction go through, BlackBerry will go private for
2/3rds the price of Nokia, which Microsoft acquired a year ago for $7.2 billion.
Source: Mashable
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