txlaw Posted May 21, 2014 Share Posted May 21, 2014 Blackberry announces their IoT platform initiative, Project Ion: http://press.blackberry.com/press/2014/blackberry-enables-businesses-to-derive-value-from-the-internet-.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zenith Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 fwiw couple of interesting observations........ The Code Conference next week will see John Chen along the CEO of INTC, WMT, TWTR, and MSFT among many other large companies like the co-founder of Google. About 2 Trillion in market cap companies presenting, with BBRY the smallest by a longshot. While the volume this month is about 129M so far, being the lowest since about 1.5B exchanged hands last Feb. A similar pattern developed in the end of 2002 and then volume started to pick up seeing the company go from about $2 a share quickly to over $6 and then in the teens. This occurred again in Jan of 2012. The reason the timing is interesting this time, as the company is hanging around the 7 area in a holding pattern, and the downtrend from $10.60, is right at the current price with the volume down nearly every month since early last year. In addition we see a rather subdued options market with open interest in the $7.50 calls for the weekly June 13, 2014 contracts doubling the past few days and mainly at the bid implying selling calls. along with the slight increase in puts at 7, it is obvious in the market looking for complacency with a slight negative bias about the same time the volume has dried up. While it makes sense with earnings not until the end of June, a large increase in volume could either see the stock crater or increase rather quickly, something the options market is not indicating right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 BlackBerry's turnaround strategy http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000279494 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OracleofCarolina Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 I suppose we will find out tomorrow how the turnaround is going. 1st Q results and annual meeting are being webcast..yipee! http://us.blackberry.com/company/investors/events.html Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zenith Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 biggest bear just turned neutral. what I find interesting is that in addition to the Amazon app deal to have the store on all devices in the fall of 2014, the payment deal to use their NOC structure is the 1st I have seen. btw in the report he puts an upside target of $19 a share, and a base of $7. He thinks the main risk is gone in the off balance sheet (purchase commitments, ip licensing, etc) amount down to about 1 billion, and that the cost cutting gives them time to see if they can orchestrate a turn around. This modus operandi is exactly what John Chen did at Sybase. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on BlackBerry with an Equalweight rating. Analyst James Faucette noted negative trends but estimates "optionality on the value of its assets" is about $6-8/share. "We acknowledge that there seems to be more negatives to the BlackBerry story than positives. Can the company build competitive mobile device/content management or mobile messaging businesses? We are skeptical; while the QNX operating system looks viable, it is likely to be quite small relative to current market cap. Further expense reductions could be necessary to return to cash flow break-even even as the hurdle rate is coming down quite quickly. The good news is that BlackBerry is likely to see its balance sheet bolstered by cash coming in from tax rebates and the sale of real estate. We estimate fair value of the company’s assets and optionality of businesses to be $6-8 per share," said Faucette. "We believe investment in BlackBerry is based on option upside that the stock can regain relevance as an enterprise software company, or alternatively can extend the transition long enough to find value in selling its remaining assets," added the analyst. "We are slightly ahead of consensus. We are slightly above consensus, as our EW weighting is based on conviction that John Chen will cut costs aggressively to preserve assets." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwericb Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Looking a little better... "BlackBerry shares rise 11% after unexpectedly strong quarter" http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/blackberry-shares-rise-11-after-unexpectedly-strong-quarter-1.2679811 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aberhound Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Looking a little better... "BlackBerry shares rise 11% after unexpectedly strong quarter" http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/blackberry-shares-rise-11-after-unexpectedly-strong-quarter-1.2679811 The earnings teleconference demonstrates Chen is one of the great CEOs. He has transformed the business and now we all get to watch his vision unfold. My favourite quote discussing mobile payments: "It's probably the next big thing," Chen dryly noted about an industry niche that's likely going to break into the hundreds of billions of dollars at some point very soon. When he was asked about the specifics of monetizing mobile payments, Chen said, "It's per transaction. We have contracts signed and can't disclose anymore. But, I like per transaction." This probably refers to the deal in Canada with the 3 dominant cell phone companies on payment processing via smartphones. The phone companies already have deals with the major banks. I like how Chen works with the dominant companies then takes a small amount per transaction. Hubris is the death of many great businesses. http://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/blackberry-signs-mobile-payment-deal-enstream/ Chen also says he is in serious negotiations with Amazon. Hopefully Bezos will sign with BBRY so Amazon mobile payments can better compete with Google Wallet. Notice how Bezos allows BBRY on their App Store while Google Play does not. Mobile payments is the real battleground. Armstrong predicts rapid move from banks to mobile payments through the likes of Google. Your money is way safer where there is no fractional reserve leverage and a strong business and brand essentially backing your deposits. European banks are in worse trouble because of it. http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/06/19/google-the-new-bank-rollover-bitcoin-banks-its-the-internet-revolution/ To me this is the best way to monetize BBM, QNX and BBRYs reputation for secure communications. Chen is unlike most generals who fight the last war. Chen points out that royalties means that you sign contracts for future earnings so there is a lag but the margins are high. That is the type of business I like to invest in. He focuses on signing up Fortune 500 on a secure BBM communication platform then uses that base to help sign up the payment processors. The 90+ million shorts are screwed. Longs like me just have to be patient and let the Maestro monetize his $80M+ equity position. Chen reminds me of Buffett cutting out the bad parts of Geico to find the jewel except that Chen may be demonstrating even more skill as he has to maneuver against and with giants to position his company to earn a piece of a massive business and better business while slowly exiting the handset business where margins are being destroyed. The speed of the transformation is amazing. Notice how Chen chooses the business with more leverage and reducing costs to scale the same as Bezos. In contrast all Buffet had to do was identify a great existing business within a lousy business which is genius itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sportgamma Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 To me this is the best way to monetize BBM, QNX and BBRYs reputation for secure communications. Chen is unlike most generals who fight the last war. Chen points out that royalties means that you sign contracts for future earnings so there is a lag but the margins are high. That is the type of business I like to invest in. He focuses on signing up Fortune 500 on a secure BBM communication platform then uses that base to help sign up the payment processors. The 90+ million shorts are screwed. Longs like me just have to be patient and let the Maestro monetize his $80M+ equity position. Chen reminds me of Buffett cutting out the bad parts of Geico to find the jewel except that Chen may be demonstrating even more skill as he has to maneuver against and with giants to position his company to earn a piece of a massive business and better business while slowly exiting the handset business where margins are being destroyed. The speed of the transformation is amazing. Notice how Chen chooses the business with more leverage and reducing costs to scale the same as Bezos. In contrast all Buffet had to do was identify a great existing business within a lousy business which is genius itself. +1 I´m one of the suckers who tried to arb the Fairfax takeover, but I´ve been so impressed with Chen that I haven´t found the will to exit yet. The speed and decisiveness is indeed amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wellmont Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 hmm so he has "transformed" bbry into an operating loss of $267m in this quarter alone? And will lose money on hardware until 2016? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary17 Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 wellmont... so what would bb need to do to make you change your view on it and perhaps even start considering it as a potential investment? thanks Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wellmont Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 bite the bullet and get out of hardware. and show me a path to a sustainable future. He is still pretending he can be a device company. And there is just not enough disclosure (sunlight) about how they are going to make money in the future. My guess is that he did the math and it showed that it's better to get out of devices "slowly", than it is to do it all at once. It buys him time to come up with something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txlaw Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Chen has stated very specifically that he thinks there is a chance to create even more value for shareholders with a handset biz than without one, even if it is only mildly profitable. I think he's right about that. And, in fact, they wouldn't have announced the AMZN app store deal if they were really intending to get out of the biz all along. However, Chen also has stated that he is not emotionally tied to the handset biz and that he could get rid of it if the market tells him that it cannot generate profits and value for the company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alekbaylee Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 However, Mr. Chen did give shareholders other reasons for optimism – trumpeting, for example, plans to realize $100-million in revenue from the company’s BlackBerry Messenger software next year through new services, use of the data it collects and advertising. “If any of you like to focus on mathematics, percentage of growth, it will from be zero to $100-million, so you tell me what the percentage is,” Mr. Chen said. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/blackberry-earnings-story/article19234513/ Like their new phablet. Now, would be nice if they could develop a super secure technology that would see their smartphones store all the content of our wallet: passport, driving licence, health care card, ID, credit card, etc. Would be very cool... :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfh227 Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 bite the bullet and get out of hardware. and show me a path to a sustainable future. He is still pretending he can be a device company. And there is just not enough disclosure (sunlight) about how they are going to make money in the future. My guess is that he did the math and it showed that it's better to get out of devices "slowly", than it is to do it all at once. It buys him time to come up with something else. Finally joined this site after a long time of lurking. Chen at the shareholder meeting or Earnings call on Thursday (I forget which) said that they need to sell about 10 million phones a year to be profitable in the hardware side of the business. That's not a lot. I think what most people are missing is that there are a lot of free BES 10 licenses out there that were done as part of "free upgrades" to BES 10. Genius in a way. Get the foot in the door and charge later. And I think it is Calendar or FY2016 that they are no longer free. There is going to be a large influx of revenues when that flip is switched. I don't have the numbers handy but it will be over $120/year per connected device. I also got a kick out of the fact that 10% of the new BES business is from companies leaving competitor MDM solutions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 BlackBerry: message berried A $5bn market cap is a lot for what the company is today Blackberry’s results on Thursday, as told by a hopeless depressive. The handset business still has not hit bottom. Consumers bought 2.6m BlackBerrys in the first quarter, a huge step down from 3.4m in the last three months of 2013. The company is focusing on selling very cheap (under $200) smartphones in emerging markets, where even the huge Chinese manufacturers struggle to turn a profit. Service revenue – where hopes for a turnround are pinned – was down by over a third from the year before. Putting aside a tax refund and some real estate sales, cash burn was $250m. Cutting expenses to the bone did not prevent an operating loss. The active user base for the company’s messaging app (a growth platform, in theory) is stuck at 85m, right where it was last quarter. The pace of the decline varies from one quarter to another. It never stops. Now, as told by an indomitable, Prozac-popping optimist. The handset business has hit bottom, and bounced. BlackBerry sold 1.6m handsets to retailers in the first quarter, up from 1.3m in the fourth quarter: the first sequential increase since 2011. Even better, the excess inventory of phones in the supply chain is declining fast, making room for BlackBerry to ship more product. The phone business is almost breaking even on a gross profit basis. The company’s cash pile grew by about $400m, to $3.1bn. Management is upbeat about the business software segment, motor technology business and Blackberry’s hugely popular messaging app. They see $100m in messenger revenue next year. Which is right? The market prefers to see the sunny side: the shares rose 12 per cent on Thursday, giving the lossmaking company a market cap of nearly $5bn. Even a cynic cannot deny that the pace of losses is slowing. Still $5bn is a lot of money for what BlackBerry is today: a start-up with a handful of unproven technology businesses, about which investors have few hard numbers, and a pile of cash which they may never receive. Keep popping those pills. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/3/acf30ef0-f7c4-11e3-90fa-00144feabdc0.html#axzz35OgbbT2a Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleepydragon Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 BBRY looks like to me the Apple when steve jobs came back to the CEO job. People said the samething, mac is dying. who want to use a mac. only students use it. etc.. Nest/Google just spent $500 for a security company (it's really just a webcam company). So i don't think $5b valuation is a lot for BBRY. How about Tesla. It's not profit yet, and mktcap is 30bn. What's the reason to buy tesla? Elon Musk? And here here is a new report from from a short seller, who longs bbry: http://www.citronresearch.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfh227 Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 fareast, What both bulls and bears are not realizing. BBM is part of the MDM solution and if you want the best security, you are going to be paying for eBBM (I think that is the name for it). So BBM is going to be monetized ... in the enterprise. People writing articles are again focusing on the consumer segment which Chen could care less about. Chen says they will be Cash Flow positive by the end of the year. I believe him. I need to revisit Thursday. The influx of revenues from BES10 is going straight to free cash flow. I forget the numbers, but I am fairly certain that we are talking about hundreds of millions in Revenues if not the B word from BES10 licensing. I have to eat dinner. I'll try to look up the numbers later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moody202 Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 BBRY looks like to me the Apple when steve jobs came back to the CEO job. The irony here is Steve Jobs killed BlackBerry with iPhone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleepydragon Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 BBRY looks like to me the Apple when steve jobs came back to the CEO job. The irony here is Steve Jobs killed BlackBerry with iPhone! bill gates killed mac with windows too - till steve jobs came back and Mac is suddenly popular again. Besides, Jobs is not at Apple anymore. If He is still running Apple, maybe I wouldn't have bought bbry :) But now the Steve ballmer of Apple is running Apple. so maybe John Chen have his chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfh227 Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 BBRY looks like to me the Apple when steve jobs came back to the CEO job. The irony here is Steve Jobs killed BlackBerry with iPhone! And Chen is not being quiet about his desire to make Blackberry the leader in "The Internet of Things". While this probably won't kill Apple or Google's phone sales, it's a whole new market segment that Blackberry could be the leader in. They have the worldwide secure infrastructure to do it. I really view Chen as a visionary with the transparency of Warren Buffett. He doesn't hide things or try to sugar coat the state of Blackberry like Thorsten did. You get the feeling that this guy is in it for the challenge, not for the compensation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wellmont Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 bbry ceo does it for "love" not money.... Compensation experts are raising concerns about the $90-million share package that BlackBerry Ltd. offered new interim chief executive John Chen, saying the company could end up stoking investor wrath by making large payouts to the executive even if he performs poorly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfh227 Posted July 3, 2014 Share Posted July 3, 2014 bbry ceo does it for "love" not money.... Compensation experts are raising concerns about the $90-million share package that BlackBerry Ltd. offered new interim chief executive John Chen, saying the company could end up stoking investor wrath by making large payouts to the executive even if he performs poorly. John Chen receives a $1 million annual salary and a performance bonus of $2 million. He also gets retricted stock that are potentially worth ALOT. Chen's chance to make big money comes in the form of 13 million restricted shares of BBRY, worth about $85 million based on a share price of $6.50 or so. Chen will have to stick around for three years to get 25% of those shares, four years for the next 25% and a full five years for the remaining 50%. Hey, if he can take this stock to $40/share he can have all the money he wants. Even if those shares are dilutive it would be a 2.4% impact on share count. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patmo Posted July 3, 2014 Share Posted July 3, 2014 Here's an interesting story about Blackberry and Me, as told in another forum: "I had a similar recent experience where I sold before my idea played out because of a quick run up with no change in the business. I bought blackberry late last year at really close to all-time low and 1 month later it went up 75% just because some peddler blogged that it was a good investment, so I made the decision to sell. Recently the market got impatient again and share price dropped to a price I was willing to pay, and lo and behold the SAME GUY blogged the SAME THESIS and share price went up 30% just 1 week after I bought again. I shit you not. I sold again, naturally." So I was expecting to invest in blackberry, but ended up trading it and made quite a lot of money out of it! I still believe in the story, but the free money was too tempting to leave on the table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfh227 Posted July 4, 2014 Share Posted July 4, 2014 This is where Blackberry is heading. Point is that investors need to realize that Blackberry is heading in new directions: http://crackberry.com/blackberry-india-launch-healthcare-services-program This has been known for some time that agreements with Nanthealth were in place. BBRY owns a minority stake in the company (I can't find info on what the percent or amount is). It's nice to see that this investment is moving forward. Blackberry is enterprise. The focus on the fall of their consumer smartphone business is what is creating opportunity for us value investors. BBRY is dead.... is an overblown statement by the media over the past 2 years. BBRY has to be considered from a qualitative standpoint more so than the typical investment. They are even a healthcare play at this point. Nanthelath is bring "Internet of Everything" to hospitals. That is a huge market segment worldwide that Nanthealth (and BBRY indirectly) could dominate within just a few years. Just imagine Nanthealth getting into just half of India's hospitals where the population is 1.2 billion (4x that of the USA). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfh227 Posted July 4, 2014 Share Posted July 4, 2014 Wow, I e-mailed BlackBerry to see how much of NantHealth BBRY owns. And I got a response. We have not disclosed these details. The following link includes the extent of details that we have publicly shared: http://press.blackberry.com/press/2014/blackberry-invests-in-nanthealth-for-integrated-end-to-end-healt0.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now