We’ve been closely following developments related to BlackBerry’s buyout ever since the company announced that it is up for sale. It signed a letter of intent with Fairfax Financial Holdings back in September. Fairfax is already the largest shareholder, it seeks to purchase the rest of the outstanding shares at $9 a pop, which makes their buyout bid for the ailing Canadian manufacturer $4.7 billion. There have been rumors that Cerberus Capital Management might be interested in acquiring BlackBerry, while the company’s co-founders have already made their intentions to bid for the company public. A new WSJ report suggests that Cerberus, the co-founders and chipmaker Qualcomm might jointly bid for BlackBerry.
Fairfax returns after conducting its due diligence on November 4th, analysts expect that it might drop its bid if there are no other buyers. Cerberus has been rumored to be interested in the company for quite some time, and both Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin are said to be in talks with Cerberus. Qualcomm is apparently in talks to join this group as well. Though a concrete offer is yet to surface, and its not known right now just how much the group would be willing to pay over the existing $9 per share offer. It was recently rumored that BlackBerry executives flew to California in order to solicit a bid from Facebook, but the world’s largest social network hasn’t publicly disclosed any interest in the handset manufacturer as yet.
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