BlackBerry shares jumped more than 4 percent on Monday morning following rumors that Prem Watsa, a Canadian bank, has interest in placing a bid on the smartphone maker. The news was first reported by Sunday Times and was covered again Monday morning by Reuters. We don't know how soon a deal could happen, or how serious these talks really are at this point, but we do know that BlackBerry hopes to have a deal lined up by Nov.
BlackBerry formed a special committee to consider the possibilities of a sale back in Aug. following a poor fiscal first quarter 2014 earning report in June. At that time, the company revealed that its BlackBerry 10 operating system, and the devices powered by it, weren't selling as well as expected. Those were supposed to give BlackBerry the boost it needed to compete against Android and iOS on a global scale.
A sale to a bank is entirely possible, though we also think Microsoft, Amazon and other big players in the tech industry could eye part of the company, specifically the firm's mobile-related intellectual property assets. At the time of writing, shares of BlackBerry were trading at $11.36, up 4.77 percent on the day.
