BlackBerry contemplating going private: Report

There seems to be a massive change coming for BlackBerry. A report has revealed that the company is “warming up” to the idea of going private. The board could take the step of making BlackBerry private in order to raise its sagging fortunes.

Sources familiar to the matter told Reuters that the company and its CEO Thorsten Heins had been contemplating the idea of pulling itself from the stock market in order to be able to take some “breathing room” to itself while it tried to fix issues plaguing it. While no decisions have been made yet, the “change of tone” by the board could act as a call to private firms to raise some money to acquire the Canadian company.

Going private?

It could still be a tall task to be able to take the company private, given its abysmal performance in the past few years. Just in 2013, BlackBerry’s shares have fallen more than 19 percent. The company’s market value too has climbed down $4.8 billion from $84 billion in 2008. The company, understandably, has declined to comment.

The sources also said that BlackBerry was talking to private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, possibly about taking the company private. The handset manufacturer, however, claims that it was discussing a potential collaboration in enterprise computing. The equity firm behind Dell’s attempt to take the company private could probably be the right choice for BlackBerry.

With hopes riding on the new BlackBerry 10 OS and a revamp within the company, BlackBerry has been unable to prove its mettle as far as sales and financial situation goes. Once a powerhouse of business-phones, BlackBerry is having to look keenly to reinvent itself facing immense competition from operating systems like Android and iOS.

In a bid to restructure its management, BlackBerry has announced several layoffs – from researchers to the top brass – and heads have not stopped rolling since last year. While a whopping 250 employees were laid off at the product testing facility in Ontario, Canada, three more VPs announced their departure this week. BlackBerry’s head of the failing Playbook tablet department left the company last month owing to personal reasons.

While BlackBerry going private is only a speculation right now, given its temprament, the Canadian giant could want to go private soon. Tighten your belts, folks. The handset manufacturer is changing again.