BlackBerry has been facing turnaround struggles and deterioration of its fundamentals. Analysts said it would be difficult to come up with a reasonable buyout price for BlackBerry.
Early reports proposed a potential buyout price of USD14 or USD15 for every share. However, Stuart Jeffrey, Nomura Equity Research's analyst, argued that the price would likely be less than what was earlier estimated.
Jeffrey said the risks and uncertainties encircling BlackBerry right now are daunting that the smartphone maker would be lucky to get bids higher than USD12 to USD13, even from an "optimistic buyer." On Wednesday, the shares of BlackBerry closed at USD11.04.
"We believe that an optimist might see a way to transform BlackBerry into a Software-as-a-Service company by keeping its email, calendar, contacts, and other mobile services, (and) leveraging the company's relationships with mobile operators and enterprises," Jeffrey said. "The only way that this might succeed, in our view, is if BlackBerry services can be delivered on iOS and Android devices. We estimate that this might require the cutting of a further 5,000 jobs on top of the already announced 6,000 cuts," he further added.
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