One of several Blackberry buildings located on Phillip St. in Waterloo, Ont., home of the beleaguered smartphone company.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Investment company Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. is not boosting its shares of BlackBerry Ltd., holding fast at a 10.5-per-cent equity stake in the smartphone maker.
Wednesday's reports that the company was increasing its position stem from a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that appeared to attribute to Fairfax a 16.8-per-cent investment stake in BlackBerry.
But the form includes the convertible debt that Fairfax owns in Blackberry, accounted for as if the investment were converted at $10 per share, in addition to the equity stake Fairfax holds. What looks like a major increase, actually covers a small sale of five million shares as Farifax rebalanced its investment portfolios.
The rebalancing follows the move Fairfax made to increase its investment in the Waterloo-headquartered Blackberry in January, when it took on a second investment of $250-million of convertible debt. In total, the company has invested $500-million in convertible debentures.
Fairfax and a consortium of investors invested an initial $1-billion in Blackberry debt late last year. The filing does not account for the conversion of the other $750-million in convertible debt.
The real changes worth paying attention to at BlackBerry come not from filings, but the vision BlackBerry's new CEO John Chen has for the firm. You can read that full story here.