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AP Photo/Altaf Qadri
berry good
Struggling BlackBerry sold for $4.7 billion
The move comes three days after BlackBerry announced it was laying off 40 per cent of its workforce.
7.45pm, 23 Sep 2013
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BLACKBERRY HAS ANNOUNCED it agreed to a $4.7 billion (€3.5 billion) buyout by a consortium of investors who plan to take the struggling Canadian smartphone maker private.
The company said in a statement that it has “signed a letter of intent agreement under which a consortium to be led by Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited has offered to acquire the company subject to due diligence.”
Fairfax, a Canadian firm, is already BlackBerry’s largest shareholder with approximately 10 per cent of its shares.
Under the proposed deal the consortium would offer $9 (€6.70) for each outstanding share, and Fairfax would contribute its own shares in the transaction.
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BlackBerry said its board of directors said support the plan.
A firm deal, once due diligence is completed, is expected to be announced by November 4. It hinges also on the consortium obtaining financing.
BlackBerry said it would continue a search for a possibly better suitor in the interim.
On Friday, the company announced it was laying off 40 per cent of its workforce after a dismal launch of new smartphones earlier this year.
There’s a growing instability in the North these days. Strong leadership is needed North and South, to prevent the outbreak of violence, and to maintain the peace.
@Frog Náireach: There is peace and there is no chance of the violent past returning. These types of attacks are being carried out by Loyalists against immigrants or other loyalist gang members. They dont threaten the stability of the North.
You see the craziness in the way they drive down here alone. And in their laws where guilt is presumed and innocence must be proven. It’s sui generis. A place apart up there beyond the bogs and rushes and abandoned wastes of North Cavan and Fermanagh. Leave them where they are another 300 years might be fit for civilised company then.
@John O’Driscoll: You on the sauce early tonight then? You sound like a teenage girl trying to imbibe the spirit Seamus Heaney in a bid to sound intellectual. The only abandoned waste here is your own grasp of reality. If you’re an example of this “civilised company” that is lacking everywhere North of Cavan ; then god help us. Pompous little man.
More renewable hate initiatives. Never let them in they are different from us. Been too long and would be a disaster. They remember 400 years ago like it was yesterday and every carefully planned insult murder and wrong done since. Done by the “other side” that is. Never their own. Or “mines” as they say in that curious argot.
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