BlackBerry and Facebook reportedly have secret meeting to discuss potential bid

While we know BlackBerry is courting companies to sell itself to in the near future, a surprise company seems to have joined the list of suitors to take over the Canadian phone maker. Facebook has apparently had a meeting with BlackBerry officials last week, though neither company is talking about it.

The Wall Street Journal has reported about the rendezvous that took place last week for which BlackBerry executives flew down to the Facebook office in California. This puts Facebook on the long list of potential buyers for BlackBerry, including Internet giant Google, Cisco, Lenovo and even BlackBerry’s original founder Mike Lazaridis.

Facebook contmeplating a bid?

It’s no secret that Facebook is extremely keen on expanding into the smartphone segment in a massive way. In this year alone, Facebook released an Android launcher called Facebook Home and even partnered with HTC to release a phone that came bundled with Home called the HTC First. If it successfully manages to take over BlackBerry, the potential of having the first “real” Facebook phone goes up a notch.

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BlackBerry has been in a bit of a spot for a while now. Despite having $2.6 billion in cash and no debt, the weak phone sales and layoffs has seen the company put itself up for sale to the highest bidder. Last month, Fairfax Financial Holdings and BlackBerry struck a preliminary deal for $4.7 billion for a takeover. Currently, the companies are in the midst of a due diligence period where BlackBerry is still on the lookout for a company who is willing to pay more. There’s barely a week left for the diligence period to end, and it looks like BlackBerry is keen on finding the right suitor for itself and not leaving anything to chance.