Boston, MA 10/18/2013 (wallstreetpr) – In August, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) said that it was exploring various options including an outright sale. Since that time, numerous potential buyer linkups have surfaced. The first bid came from Watsa’s Fairfax Financial and there has been news about various technology companies putting in their bids as well. Now, there is some news that Lenovo has shown some interest in the company and the company shares rose by 0.86% on the news.
Different sources in the know have stated that BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) is now in talks with Google, Cisco and SAP AG, the German company, amongst other potential bidders. The company may be contemplating selling itself completely or in segments as well. No comments have been forthcoming from any of the potential buyers and no formal bid has been put forth by them either.
Segmented sale?
Industry watchers are saying that none of these companies may actually be interested in buying out BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) in totality. They may have an interest with those segments that blend well with the workings of their own enterprise. Two of these sources stated that they think that some of these potential bidders might pair up in the bidding process for the company. This will be entirely dependent on the amount of interest they have in its network assets and hardware division.
The imminent sale
This kind of a deal would be the alternative to the preliminary offer of $9/share that had been put forth by Fairfax Financial, which is BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)’s largest shareholder. At the start of the month, Douglas Fregin and Mike Lazaridis, the BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) co-founders said that they might also be considering a bid. In the event that a sale plan comes through, the company will definitely have to go through very stringent regulatory reviews in Washington as well as in Ottawa.
