RIM Co-Founder Drops His Stock 114
drdread66 writes "Reuters reports today that Research In Motion co-founder Jim Balsillie dumped his entire stake in BlackBerry at the end of 2012. While it's common to see high-level executives sell some of their shares to gain some liquidity, it's unusual to see them exit their positions completely. This has to be seen as a massive vote of 'no confidence' from someone who was on the inside long enough to know what's going on in the company."
That about sums it up.... (Score:1, Insightful)
When one of the founders bails you know the ship is sinking.
Re:That about sums it up.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you know that someone with deep pockets paid him to do so, lowering the prices and rendering the company vulnerable to a Hostile Takeover.
Do you know Siemens VDO, I mean, Continental A/G, I mean, Schaeffler Group? :-)
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Someone who wants RIM's loyal customers
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If sure if someone sent all 3 of them a $25 gift card to Applebees they'd abdicate willingly.
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If sure if someone sent all 3 of them a $25 gift card to Applebees they'd abdicate willingly.
I know that slashdotters find this hard to believe, but Blackberry have a strong customer base, albeit they're not the top dog any more. Just because they're unfashionable compared with Apple/Android from a techy point of view, in places like the UK Blackberries are the phone of choice for teenagers because they are the best for texting.
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Microsoft.
Evidence? See: Nokia.
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Why would anyone buy rim?
Re:That about sums it up.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Patent rights.
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microsoft google apple and others are probably drooling over the possibility to buy rim. RIM own lots of patent for smart phones and mobile devices they also have a secure network for email and internet entrenched enterprise/government market.
BBRY up 7% (Score:3)
Or you know that someone with deep pockets paid him to do so, lowering the prices and rendering the company vulnerable to a Hostile Takeover.
Do you know Siemens VDO, I mean, Continental A/G, I mean, Schaeffler Group? :-)
So if this is intended to sink the stock it looks like it failed.
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Looks like they lost 30% in one day back in December. Maybe that's when he dumped.
It's been up-hill since then... maybe on (persistent) rumors of buyout. By the time you read about anything, anywhere, it's past the real market relevance. You're trading in fall-out land.
By the time you read about it on Slashdot, it's a billion years past any market relevance.
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By the time you read about it on Slashdot, it's a billion years past any market relevance.
Shock news, slashdot isn't a real time source of insider info for all the armchair stock jockeys who've doubled their money by buying Apple a decade ago and think they're Gordon Gecko.
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So if this is intended to sink the stock it looks like it failed.
Or the Takeover already started.
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More likely a margin call. If he borrowed against his sinking stock portfolio, at some point he would be forced to liquidate it to satisfy the terms of the loan.
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More likely a margin call. If he borrowed against his sinking stock portfolio, at some point he would be forced to liquidate it to satisfy the terms of the loan.
Makes sense [wikipedia.org]!
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Don't dismiss the fact that he's a Canadian who want's to own a NHL franchise. Maybe he just needs the cash to pay off some bad feelings the current owners and NHL have toward him.
Re:That about sums it up.... (Score:5, Interesting)
As a resident of Waterloo Ontario, I think Jim burned a lot of cash in philanthropy at the University of Waterloo. He might actually need the cash.
Re:That about sums it up.... (Score:5, Interesting)
When one of the founders bails you know the ship is sinking.
That's what he hopes people will think.
a) Everybody dumps their shares, share price plummets
b) He buys back his shares, dirt cheap.
c) RIM makes Apple-killing product announcement
d) Profit!!
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I think step 3 is supposed to be "..." because making an Apple Killing product isn't terribly straight forward.
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Between c) and d)
c.1) Sell on the rise in share price, but before it drops when people see through the hype
apparently therapy is working for him now (Score:2)
because this is a sign that the delusions of grandeur and visions and voices are disappearing
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Re:That about sums it up.... (Score:5, Informative)
Except that (in spite of what the summary implies) he is no longer with the company.
Re:That about sums it up.... (Score:5, Funny)
He's not breaking up with RIM. He just thought that he and RIM should take a break and maybe not move so fast, you know. He still loves RIM and all, he's just not *IN* love with RIM. And that other company is just a friend.
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You have an awfully romantic view about business leaders if you think they let sentiment about being a "founder" get in the way of making money. It probably turned out that from a tax planning point of view, that was the right thing to do at the right time.
If he was still an employee, fair enough, he'd have to tow the party line.
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I don't think anyone has a problem with him cashing out his shares. He was a founder, he's entitled to do what he wants with his shares. It's just a little alarming - at least to me - to see someone completely divest themselves from a company they helped found so quickly. Particularly since it's right when Blackberry is at a very crucial point. It sends a message that he has lot faith in the company. Some investors might be left to wonder if he knows something they don't.
Hockey Team (Score:4, Insightful)
Or it's probably because he needs cash to buy an NHL team to move to Hamilton.
Re:Hockey Team (Score:5, Insightful)
The way the NHL is run it'd be easier/cheaper to move Hamilton to Phoenix.
If his judgment is so good ... (Score:3, Insightful)
If his judgement is so good about the mobile phone industry, how did he take the undisputed industry leader and run it off the road?
Perhaps he thinks the new models are missing the navigation wheel and the color screen is distracting.
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If his judgement is so good about the mobile phone industry, how did he take the undisputed industry leader and run it off the road?
Perhaps he thinks the new models are missing the navigation wheel and the color screen is distracting.
Exactly this. This person has largely run the company into the ground. If he's sold off his stock - and his influence on the Board... well, as a stockholder I'm celebrating.
(As were many others. Stock closed up 7% today on the news.)
Was he ousted? Maybe sour grapes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wasn't he ousted earlier? Might this be a case of sour grapes and a way to get back and give RIM, I mean Blackberry, a bit of a black eye?
Bad decisions (Score:5, Insightful)
A decade of being in the right place at the right time only keeps your bad decisions in check for so long. Eventually somebody comes along and makes good decisions.
Although I don't have much hope for RIM, I think any decisions this guy makes are as irrelevant as his decisions in his last years at the company.
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"it's human nature to expect that the people who fired you are know-nothing idiots who will drive the truck into the ditch."
And sometimes it's true. When they fired me on my past job I gave them two to three years. They folded after two years and six months.
But maybe if they hadn't fired you they'd have folded after six months.
Re:Was he ousted? Maybe sour grapes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Was he ousted? Maybe sour grapes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Might this be a case of sour grapes and a way to get back and give RIM, I mean Blackberry, a bit of a black eye?
Actually, if the headline had been been written like this:
"Recently Ousted RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie Sells all his RIM Stocks Today"
...there would have been no black eye or misunderstanding to begin with. And its following paragraph would have been immediately seen for the click-baiting fabricated lie that it really is: "While it's common to see high-level executives sell some of their shares to gain some liquidity, it's unusual to see them exit their positions completely. This has to be seen as a massive vote of 'no confidence' from someone who was on the inside long enough to know what's going on in the company. " - emphasis in bold mine.
PS: And please, don't take this to mean that I'm some Blackberry fanboy. I'm not. I personally don't have confidence in that company either. It's just that I hate to see the "news" purposefully misinterpreted in this way.
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I may be recalling this incorrectly, but I think Steve Jobs did something like sell all his shares when he got kicked out of Apple...
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Minus one. So he'd keep receiving quarterly reports and balances.
And with that money he rescued/acquired Pixar and founded NeXT, not bad.
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FTFY
I see it as plus (Score:2, Insightful)
I see a founder who has had a huge strop that basically while he was at the help the company was loosing out to the rising smartphone market around it. He got sidelined and selling his stock was a final "throwing my toys out of a the pram' act. Ive seen it before, albeit in smaller startup environments. I see that Blackberry now at least has a viable modern product... and is attempting to find a direction. during then end of his tenure it was lost... Nothing more than an angry failed executive here...
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sorry but if he knows the company is not headed for better times, why should he hold onto stock that is just sitting there being devalued? But somehow if he's smart and sells it knowing it won't get better, he's somehow all angsty and trying to get back at management?
In related news, BBRY (aka RIMM) is up 7% (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps this is a good thing. The whole co-CEO business may look good, but there's a reason there aren't more co-leadership (or triumvirate) roles in leading companies (even GOOG ditched the triumvirate idea and shifted to a front-man+visionary model). This isn't a buddy cop movie where everything is scripted. CEOs of organizations in heavily competing markets actually do things.
Shitty journalism (Score:5, Interesting)
He's no longer with the company. He was part of the train wreck co-CEO management that refused to change. I see this nothing but good that he has nothing to do with the company now.
Of course the media wants to tear down a non Apple company. They are well on their way.
Re:Shitty journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Shitty Journalism
Of course the media wants to tear down a non Apple company. They are well on their way.
What exactly are you smoking? What part of this story is shitty journalism or "tearing down a company". The founder and former CEO of an important tech company dumps all of his stock at once, which is a pretty unusual event. It's definitely reportable, as is the impact it had on the company. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and the other players in the industry weren't even mentioned.
So clearly this isn't shitty journalism. In fact, someone *not* reporting on this would be really shitty journalism. So what, exactly, is your problem with the new story?
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Diversification. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Balsillie left the company in 2011. He has no up-to-date insider knowledge or connections with the current management team
Yes, because Lord knows that when a founder leaves a company they lose *all* contact with their former colleagues and employees, even those who are friends.
Yep, every time I left a job I lost all access to insider information from within the corporate walls. There's no way I heard about what was going on from my friends/erstwhile co-workers. I mean, the very notion is preposterous!
It's outright *absurd* for anyone to believe this cofounder / former CEO would know *anything* more than the general public hear
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Ah, but does he still have his Lotus? (Score:2)
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The old Elan or the newer one... or was it a Kia? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Elan [wikipedia.org]
Good move (Score:2)
RIM stock had a nice run-up late last year.
That plus the fact that this company is on the downslope makes it pretty obvious that he made a wise financial decision.
Jump To... Conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, give the guy a break - those high-class hookers are expensive!
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Hey, give the guy a break - those high-class hookers are expensive!
If you think hookers are expensive, try getting married [people.com]!
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If you think hookers are expensive, try getting married [people.com]!
For some reason my brain is convinced that sentence should end with "to one."
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It was a tough call for me, so I took the conservative approach. On that note, you might appreciate this [bash.org].
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Hey, give the guy a break - those high-class hookers are expensive!
If you've got three hundred million dollars, I seriously doubt that paying for hookers is a problem. You can take this in either of two ways, I leave the conclusion as an exercise for the reader.
Remember Jobs did the same (Score:2, Flamebait)
Remember Jobs did the same when he left Apple and started NeXT. Maybe he has a new startup doing Blackberry like products better than Blackberry.
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Are you sure? I thought so too, but can't find a citation.
He did sell all but one of the 1.5 million shares that he got when Apple bought NeXT, however.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Steve-Jobs-Confirms-Apple-Stock-Sale-2812791.php [sfgate.com]
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I think I remember him mentioning it on "Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview".
Maybe he just made a mistake (Score:3)
And accidentally hit the 'Dump' button when he meant to hit the 'Buy' button.
Re:Maybe he just made a mistake (Score:4, Funny)
Using their new GUI of course.
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He was holding it wrong.
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Vmware CEO dumped $60 million shares in Fall 2012 (Score:1)
The then CEO of Vmware Paul Maritz dumped $60,000,000 USD of shares in 3 trading days in mid-November 2012 leaving only just over 38k shares -- VMware shares have recently took a beating. Insider knowledge?
adios! (Score:3)
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http://www.thestar.com/business/2012/03/30/jim_balsillie_resigns_from_rim_board.html [thestar.com]
> Jim Balsillie stepped down from the Research in Motion board of directors on March 2.
Looks like he was pushed out already and now BlackBerry do seem to have a new OS, new model based on numerous modern mobile programming models.
I never bought a BB before but having been a happy Nokia customer for over 12 years, I shall be registering my vote of no confidence in WinPhone8 by selecting a different brand for my contract re
The most interesting part of this story (Score:1)
Jim Balsillie (Score:2)
From the Summary: This has to be seen as a massive vote of 'no confidence' from someone who was on the inside long enough to know what's going on in the company."
The guy who was desperately trying to buy an NHL franchise while Blackberry were spinning its wheels in the face of Android and iPhone? Yeah, that guy knew what was going on all right.
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Because the "experimental GPS tracking ribbons" still work when you take the battery out, man! You need to keep your phone in tinfoil if you want to keep your privacy
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Haha, that's what they want you to think. In reality, the tinfoil _focuses_ the radio signals, making it easier to pick up the data - and to send commands to that controller they inserted last time you got a vaccination - or was it a 'routine blood test'?
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Because the "experimental GPS tracking ribbons" still work when you take the battery out, man! You need to keep your phone in tinfoil if you want to keep your privacy
At last, the voice of reason!