BlackBerry Places Real Estate Holdings on Sale; Shareprice Logs 30% Hike Since 2014 at TSX
YouTube/Kevin Baker
The questions posed by that YouTube uploader would probably be answered soon as embattled Canadian phonemaker BlackBerry is selling the bulk of its commercial real estate holdings in the country. It would combine vacant sales and sale-leaseback arrangements to divest itself of the properties measuring about 3 million square feet of space.
However, the tech firm did not provide a potential value of the sale which will be handled by CBRE, a large commercial real estate company.
BlackBerry CEO and Executive Chairman John Chen, in a statement, said despite the sale of its real estate, the company will remain in its Waterloo headquarters and will keep its strong presence in Canada and other global centres.
Prior to the announcement, BlackBerry sold in December to the University of Waterloo five buildings and land for $41 million. The sale is expected to close on Feb 14, adding 300,000 square feet and 1,000 parking spaces to the university's property holdings.
Mr Chen said the sale will further enhance BlackBerry's financial flexibility and provide more resources to support its operations as the company continues to evolve.
Until Mr Chen's takeover, the company was floundering over poor sales of new smartphones released in 2013, resulting in writing off about $1 billion inventory.
Just when the tech world was expecting BlackBerry to fold up, management changes were put in place and confidence seems to be returning. The U.S. Defence Department ordered 80,000 BlackBerrys for deployment to new mobile device management system, boosting shares of the company by 8 per cent on Monday.
The year 2014 seems to start the turnaround of BlackBerry which was considered one of the biggest losers in the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2013. However, since January, BlackBerry stock has surged 30 per cent, attributed by analysts to the quick moves of Mr Chen which improved shareholder sentiment.
James Cordwell, analyst of Atlantic Equities said, quoted by Financial Post, "I think the majority of people trading the stock on a daily basis are probably not there on a fundamentals view, they are more likely looking at what the news flow is going to be on one to two-month basis. And I agree that the news is probably going to be more positive than negative in the near term."