Lenovo is “actively considering” making a bid to buy all of BlackBerry.
The Wall Street Journal spoke with people familiar with the matter who stated the Chinese PC giant, that boosted its business by acquiring IBM’s personal computer operation and the ThinkPad brand, is perhaps hoping to make a similar move in regards to its mobile ambitions.
The new report seems to suggest stronger interest on the part of Lenovo as compared to comments Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing made in March, saying that a deal for BlackBerry made sense but that his company needed to analyze the market and determine the importance of the company.
At the time of that report, BlackBerry’s stock jumped close to $15. Now, in the wake of dismal handset sales and massive layoffs, the company’s stock is trading closer to $8.
Lenovo has made strides in mobile on its own. For the second quarter, IDC estimated that Lenovo was the third biggest—behind Samsung and LG—global manufacturer of Android phones, controlling 6.1 percent of the market.
With BlackBerry’s phones and operating system clamoring for any traction and Android firmly in first worldwide, it’s unclear what Lenovo would do with BlackBerry if it did get in a winning bid.
But any Lenovo bid for BlackBerry will be in direct competition with a number of different offers. Fairfax Financial has gotten BlackBerry to tentatively agree to a $4.7 billion buyout. Meanwhile, former BlackBerry head Mike Lazaridis is said to be putting together an offer of his own while BlackBerry is reportedly considering selling itself off piecemeal to suitors like Google and SAP.
