BlackBerry co-founders to make bid for the company.According to a filing last Thursday, Michael Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin have upped their stake in the mobile company they founded back in 1985, to 8% or 41,6 million shares.
The BlackBerry co-founders have indicated they are “considering all available options”.. “including…a potential acquisition of all the outstanding Shares of the Issuer that they do not currently own, either by themselves or with other interested investors”, in a filing to US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The news comes as BlackBerry, is set to be taken over by Canadian insurance company, Fairfax Financial, in a deal worth $4.7bn or $9 per share announced last month.
Fairfax already has 10% share in the Canadian phone giant, which has suffered major financial losses, management upheaval, and marketshare disintegration at the hands of Apple and Android.
But there are also other interested parties in the ailing firm, apparently.
Samsung, Cisco and SAP are all believed to have expressed interest in plucking BlackBerry from the obscurity it currently finds itself in – at the bottom of the smartphone pile – an industry it pioneered with the release of first BlackBerry in 1999.
Recent figures by analysts Gartner, show BlackBerry share stood at just 2.7% in Q2 last, pipped by newcomer Microsoft Windows and the two mobility titans, iOS and Android.
BB shares rebounded in late trading – up 1.1% to $8.20 in the US.
