RIM weighing option to sell hardware production unit
22 Jan 2013
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) is looking at strategic options, including sale of its hardware production unit, reports quoted its chief executive Thorsten Heins as saying in an interview.
The RIM stock was at its highest since late 2011 after Heins said in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt that there is a possibility that the company may consider a strategic sale of its hardware unit.
The possibilities included ''the sale of hardware production as well as licensing of our software,'' the newspaper quoted CEO Thorsten Heins as saying.
Nick Manning, a spokesman for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, said those options were examples that Heins cited among the possibilities under consideration in a strategic review.
The company had hired JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) and RBC Capital Markets in May to help it evaluate options. While Heins had not ruled out a sale of the company, he said RIM's focus was on exploring strategic partnerships or software licensing deals.
On 30 January, there would be the debut of the new BlackBerry 10 devices that RIM was counting on to reverse a sales slide and help it win back market share lost to Apple Inc iPhone and handsets that run Google Inc Android software.