Price For The Sale Of BlackBerry Ltd May Reach Around $15 Per Share

Price For The Sale Of BlackBerry Ltd May Reach Around $15 Per Share

Analysts think that the sale of BlackBerry Ltd may give stockholders around reach $15 each per share. Although some believe of a “going-private” transaction for the company, calculations have shown that the company may go up by at least 30 percent.

Pre-market movements showed the shares of the company gaining by around 0.5 percent. The company recently indicated that a special committee was created to look into option, including a possible sale of the company.

The biggest shareholder of the company, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, is reportedly looking into the possibility of making the company private.

According to Nomura Securities’ Stuart Jeffrey, any take-private or takeout price of the company may be appealing if the management maintains its optimism and Fairfax will be among the potential bidders for the sale of BlackBerry Ltd.

Jeffrey added that it was not easy to recommend a takeout price for the company since it requires widespread restructuring to produce a successful company. The company also has around $3 billion in cash and around $3 billion worth of licenses and patents. Sales of the latest BlackBerry 10 smartphones did not meet the expectations of analysts.

Gus Papageorgiou, an analyst from Scotia Capital, thinks that the company can bring in over $14 per share. He also thinks that some deal may be worked out with some industry players like Cisco, Ericsson, Oracle, IMB, Apple, and Samsung. He added that the platform of BlackBerry will obtain credibility the company partners with a big player in the industry.

Papageorgiou indicated that the net cash, patents, and handset operations of the company may give it a bid of around $14.20 per share for the sale of BlackBerry Ltd.

Raymond James Ltd. revealed that going private may give the company around $14 per share if the EBITDA will increase. However, this remains uncertain with the uneasy performance of the BlackBerry 10 in the market.

However, some analysts do not believe that industry players will be interested in the sale of BlackBerry Ltd. Although the names of other companies were floated in the possible transaction, some analysts dismissed the idea.

Jeffrey indicated that a possible long-term solution for the company is to make its applications compatible with the iOS and Android mobile operating systems. He added that the transition will be difficult for BlackBerry, and would be appropriate for a private company instead of a publicly listed one.

With the current competition between the iOS of Apple and Android of Google, some analysts indicated that only a small number of companies may be interested in the sale of BlackBerry Ltd.

Posted by James Fried on Wednesday August 14 2013, 4:45 AM EST. Ref: The Globe and Mail. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Finance. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0