Nasdaq: Rimm (13.70) Short Pitch

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Nasdaq: Rimm (13.70) Short Pitch RESEARCH IN MOTION NASDAQ: RIMM (13.70) SHORT PITCH March 15, 2012 Leon Hu PRESENTATION AGENDA I. Overview II. Thesis III. Stock IV. Misperceptions V. Risk VI. Summary Overview Thesis Stock Misperceptions Risk Summary • Telecommunications company • Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario • Designs, manufactures and markets wireless hardware, software and services • Includes the BlackBerry line of mobile email and smartphone devices MIKE LAZARIDIS, CHRIS SHAW & DOUG FREGIN MIKE LAZARIDIS, JIM BALSILLIE & THORSTEN HEINS Overview Thesis Stock Misperceptions Risk Summary Lackluster Products Stifling Competition Incompetent Management BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK • Runs BlackBerry Tablet OS • Direct competitor to iPad and Android tablets • Launched on April 19, 2011 BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK Joanna Stern Technology Editor ABC News BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK ≈ $190 + LABOR + TRANSPORTATION + RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT + RETAIL COSTS MANAGEMENT MIKE LAZARIDIS JIM BALSILLIE THORSTEN HEINS Former Chief Technology Officer at Siemens AG MANAGEMENT MIKE LAZARIDIS JIM BALSILLIE MANAGEMENT • Collectively named Worst C.E.O.’s of 2011 by Sydney Finkelstein and Herb Greenberg • High-level RIM employees write scathing letters to Lazaridis and Balsillie • “I have lost confidence. While I hide it at work, my passion has been sapped. I know I am not alone — the sentiment is widespread and it includes people within your own teams.” • “The amount of red tape required to get just about anything done is exhausting, slowing progress and removing all incentive for employees at any level to innovate.” THORSTEN HEINS Former Chief Technology Officer at Siemens AG MANAGEMENT “If we continue doing well what we are doing, I see no problems of us being in the top three players worldwide in the next years in wireless.” “We are a great innovative company, but sometimes we innovate too much while we are building a product.” Thorsten Heins Chief Executive Officer & President Research in Motion MANAGEMENT LAZARIDIS & THORSTEN HEINS BALSILLIE RESIGN NAMED C.E.O. 4.0% to 5.0% 8.4% MANAGEMENT President & CEO Board of Directors Innovation Committee ADDITIONAL POINTS • Fires 10 Percent of Workforce • BlackBerry Blackout • National Security Conflicts • Phone Delays • Losing the BBX Trademark Overview Thesis Stock Misperceptions Risk Summary • Price: $13.70 • 52-Week Range: $12.45 - $64.63 • Market Cap: $7.02B • P/E Ratio: 3.10 • EPS: $4.11 • Beta: 2.13 • Short Interest: 59.21M • Shares Out: 515.70M Overview Thesis Stock Misperceptions Risk Summary • Overhaul of management • Core consumer base still intact • Possibility of purchase • Weak patent portfolio • “We haven't considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in [buying RIM].” Samsung Electronics Overview Thesis Stock Misperceptions Risk Summary • Relatively strong financial statistics • Substantial cash position • Absence of short term and long term debt • BlackBerry 10 OS • Scheduled to be released in 2012 Overview Thesis Stock Misperceptions Risk Summary • March 29, 2012 • Q4 2012 Research In Motion Earnings Release • “There is a greater than 50 percent chance that RIM will negatively pre-announce the February quarter.” Peter Misek Managing Director Jefferies & Company • Recommendation • Immediately initiate short position in Research In Motion before Q4 2012 earnings release BUZZY GEDULD CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER COUGAR TRADING “THEY HAVE NOT KEPT UP WITH THE NEW WORLD.”.
Recommended publications
  • Benyamin Kohanim, Et Al. V. Blackberry Limited, Et Al. 13-CV
    Case 1:13-cv-07132-TPG Document 12 Filed 03/25/14 Page 1 of 5 tPDCSDNY DOCUMENT UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT ELECmONICA:ix P1St) SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK i _Jl ---------------------------------x jDATEF1LED:ZV('t I - MARVIN PEARLSTEIN, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, 13 Civ. 7060 (TPG) Plaintiff, - against - BLACKBERRY LIMITED (formerly known as RESEARCH IN MOTION LIMITED), THORSTEN HEINS, and BRIAN BIDUKKA, Defendants. ---------------------------------x BENYAMIN KOHANIM, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, 13 Civ. 7132 (TPG) Plaintiff, - against - BLACKBERRY LIMITED, et al., Defendants. ---------------------------------x VU TRAN, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, 13 Civ. 7972 (TPG) Plaintiff, - against - BLACKBERRY LIMITED, et al., ORDER Defendants. ---------------------------------x - Case 1:13-cv-07132-TPG Document 12 Filed 03/25/14 Page 2 of 5 Before the court are three separate but related class-action lawsuits against BlackBerry Limited, the telecommunications company known best for its line of BlackBerry mobile devices. Plaintiffs allege that Blackberry published a series of materially false and misleading statements regarding the company's financial projections and the new BlackBerry 10 device. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(a), plaintiffs now move to consolidate the cases and to appoint a lead plaintiff and lead counsel pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act ("PSLRA"), 15 U.S.C. § 78u-4. For the reasons stated more fully in court on March 14, 2014, the court (1) grants the motion to consolidate the actions filed as 13 Civ. 7060 (TPG), 13 Civ. 7132 (TPG), and 13 Civ. 7972 (TPG); appoints Todd Cox and Mary Dinzik as lead plaintiff; and appoints Kahn, Swick & Foti, LLC as lead counsel.
    [Show full text]
  • Urbanism Under Google: Lessons from Sidewalk Toronto
    Fordham Law Review Volume 88 Issue 2 Article 4 2019 Urbanism Under Google: Lessons from Sidewalk Toronto Ellen P. Goodman Rutgers Law School Julia Powles University of Western Australia Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr Part of the Law and Society Commons, and the Science and Technology Law Commons Recommended Citation Ellen P. Goodman and Julia Powles, Urbanism Under Google: Lessons from Sidewalk Toronto, 88 Fordham L. Rev. 457 (2019). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol88/iss2/4 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fordham Law Review by an authorized editor of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact [email protected]. URBANISM UNDER GOOGLE: LESSONS FROM SIDEWALK TORONTO Ellen P. Goodman* & Julia Powles** Cities around the world are rapidly adopting digital technologies, data analytics, and the trappings of “smart” infrastructure. These innovations are touted as solutions to help rationalize services and address rising urban challenges, whether in housing, transit, energy, law enforcement, health care, waste management, or population flow. Promises of urban innovation unite cities’ need for help with technology firms’ need for markets and are rarely subject to evidentiary burdens about projected benefits (let alone costs). For the city, being smart is about functioning better and attracting tech plaudits. For the technology company, the smart city is a way to capture the value of data flows—either by directly monetizing behavioral insights or by using those insights to design or acquire services—and then realizing the network effects and monopoly rents that have characterized information technology platforms.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 United States District Court Southern District of New
    Case 1:13-cv-07060-CM-KHP Document 488 Filed 01/26/21 Page 1 of 45 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK MARVIN PEARLSTEIN, Individually And On Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs, No. 13 Civ. 7060 (CM) -against- BLACKBERRY LIMITED (F/K/A RESEARCH IN MOTION LIMITED), THORSTEN HEINS, BRIAN BIDULKA, and STEVE ZIPPERSTEIN, Defendants. ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION McMahon, C.J.: On September 29, 2017, Lead Plaintiffs Todd Cox and Mary Dinzik (“Plaintiffs”) and additional Plaintiffs Yong M. Cho and Batuhan Ulug1 filed the Second Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint (“SAC”), the operative complaint in this action, against Defendants BlackBerry Limited (“BlackBerry” or the “Company”), its former Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins, its former Chief Financial Officer Brian Bidulka, and its Chief Legal Officer Steve Zipperstein (collectively, “Defendants”) for violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. § 78a et seq., (the “Exchange Act”). (“SAC” ¶ 1, Dkt. No. 84.) Plaintiffs bring this federal securities class action on behalf of the purchasers of BlackBerry common stock between March 28, 2013 and September 20, 2013 (the “Class Period”). (Id.) They allege that Defendants made a series of materially false and misleading statements and omissions concerning the Company’s new BlackBerry 10 smartphones (“BB10s”) during the Class Period. (Id.) 1 Cho and Ulug were dismissed from this case. (See Dkt. Nos. 338, 409, 413, 417.) They appealed their dismissal to the Second Circuit, where their appeal is currently pending (No. 19-3376). 1 Case 1:13-cv-07060-CM-KHP Document 488 Filed 01/26/21 Page 2 of 45 In short, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants’ misstatements and omissions maintained the price of BlackBerry’s stock or otherwise prevented it from falling over the course of the Class Period.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mobile OS Platform War
    For the exclusive use of S. Trehan, 2021. 9-613-001 REV: APRIL 3, 2014 ALAN MACCORMACK BRIAN DUNN C H R I S F . KEMERER Research In Motion: The Mobile OS Platform War 1. Introduction New details are emerging about the rowdy behavior of two Research In Motion executives who were fired for disrupting an intercontinental flight—including that they managed to chew their way out of restraints after being handcuffed by crewmembers. [E]ach pleaded guilty to mischief for disrupting an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing last week. The plane landed instead in Vancouver, where a court later ordered them to pay $72,000 in restitution. — CBC News1 At the end of 2011, this was not the sort of publicity that Research In Motion (RIM) needed. The company’s stock price, valued at over $70 a share in February, had plummeted to a low of $12.45 in December. Its leading market share had been eroded by major competitors Apple and Google, and its most recent product, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet released in April, had flopped. Analysts were beginning to question whether the company had the capacity to survive, let alone thrive, in the very market that it had created. RIM’s flagship product, the BlackBerry smart phone running the company’s BlackBerry Operating System (OS), had enjoyed phenomenal success since its release in 2003. Focused primarily on business and government users, the BlackBerry had gained a 45% U.S. market share by 2008, making it the most popular smart phone in the country.2 More recently, however, things had changed.
    [Show full text]
  • Blackberry) Be Saved? Research in Motion (RIM
    BM1807 Names _________________________________________ Section ____________ Date____________ ACTIVITY Can Research in Motion (BlackBerry) be Saved? Research in Motion (RIM) was founded in 1984 by Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis as a business focused on providing the backbone for the two-way pager market. In 1999, they released the first BlackBerry device with an embedded full QWERTY keyboard. The “BlackBerry” set the bar for the connected business person. The term “crack berry” was even coined for those business people who could not put down their BlackBerry. The company focused almost exclusively on the integrity of the network on which their phones operated. They provided security measures that made RIM the choice of data managers. When developing a strategy, companies have to bring together all the elements in a manner that provides them with a unique position relative to their competitors. At the time of its release, most competitors provided cell phones that could make calls and little more. BlackBerry changed the nature and use of a portable device and provided a secure platform for IT managers wary of allowing remote devices to access their systems. BlackBerry sales peaked in 2008 about the same time that Apple released the iPhone. Despite that, the company still has tens of millions of users worldwide, a cash hoard over $2.7 billion or P135 billion and a reputation for being a best-in-class device for the business community. The company has made a number of missteps along the way, including a touchscreen BlackBerry that did not catch on, a tablet that lacked e-mail connectivity, and an approach to the market that made it clear that the company believed the backbone was of more value than the device used.
    [Show full text]
  • Blackberry Limited (Exact Name of Registrant As Specified in Its Charter)
    UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 __________________________________________________________ FORM 40-F REGISTRATION STATEMENT PURSUANT TO SECTION 12 OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 or ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13(a) OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 For the fiscal year ended March 1, 2014 Commission File Number 0-29898 __________________________________________________________ BlackBerry Limited (Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter) Ontario 3,661 Not Applicable (Province or other Jurisdiction (Primary Standard Industrial (I.R.S. Employer of Incorporation or Organization) Classification Code Number) Identification No) 2200 University Ave East Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2K 0A7 (519) 888-7465 (Address and telephone number of Registrant’s principal executive offices) BlackBerry Corporation 5000 Riverside Drive, Suite 100E, Irving, Texas, USA 75039 (972) 650-6126 (Name, address and telephone number of agent for service in the United States) __________________________________________________________ Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act: Common Shares, without par value Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act: None For annual reports, indicate by check mark the information filed with this Form: Annual information form Audited annual financial statements Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the Registrant’s classes of capital or common stock as of the close of the period covered by this annual report. The Registrant had 526,551,953 Common Shares outstanding as at March 1, 2014.
    [Show full text]
  • 1.0 Executive Summary 1.1 History of Blackberry in 1984, Mike Lazaridis
    1.0 Executive Summary 1.1 History of blackberry In 1984, Mike Lazaridis founded an electronics and computer science consulting company called Research In Motion (RIM). For years the company focused on a breakthrough technology, which they called it as the ―BlackBerry‖. It is an easy, secure, and effective device that allowed users to send and receive e-mails while away from the office. Since email had become so popular, people who were on the go needed a way to access their email without having to find a computer. RIM grew into one of the world‘s most valuable tech companies. The BlackBerry became the indispensable accessory of business executives, heads of state, and Hollywood celebrities. The first BlackBerry smart phone was developed in 2003 and in a remarkably short time, they have managed to completely change the way that people communicate. This was a device that not only functioned as a telephone but also allowed for the sending or receiving of email and text messages as well as web browsing. RIM‘s BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) instant messaging service is once popular before. The plan of BBM was to push wireless carriers to adopt as a replacement for their short text messaging system (SMS) applications. 1.2 Current competitive position Since the introduction of the BlackBerry, there was a lot of competitors have appeared on the market and now they are competing with some of the biggest companies in the telecommunications industry. This competition combined with improving technology has resulted in a huge increase in the number of functions that you will find on your BlackBerry.
    [Show full text]
  • Silicon Valley Imperialists Create New Model Villages As Smart Cities in Their Own Image
    Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity Article Silicon Valley Imperialists Create New Model Villages as Smart Cities in Their Own Image Philip Cooke Mohn Center for Innovation & Regional Development, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, 5020 Bergen, Norway; cookepn@cardiff.ac.uk Received: 13 March 2020; Accepted: 27 March 2020; Published: 8 April 2020 Abstract: In her study of ‘Surveillance Capitalism’, Shoshana Zuboff cites Google’s parent firm Alphabet’s legal customer-purchase agreement for the parent firm’s Nest thermostats. These impose ‘oppressive privacy and security consequences’ requiring sensitive information to be shared through ‘Internet-of-Things’ (IoT) networks with other domestic and external devices, unnamed functionaries and various third parties. This is for data harvesting, analytics, processing, manipulation and transformation through digital re-sale to the same and other consumers in the form of unwanted, targeted advertising. The point of this identity ‘rendition’ is to massively augment corporate profits. It is but a short step from trapping the unwitting consumer in a ‘smart home’ to planning a similarly mediated ‘smart city’ aimed at further massively augmenting corporate profits. This is happening, as founders of digital media from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Tesla either commission or become beneficiaries of ‘smart city’ planning. However, there is evidence that such imperiousness is increasingly countered by emerging democratic critique of these new ‘model villages’ or ‘company towns’. Keywords: digital innovations; company towns; smart cities; surveillance capitalism 1. Introduction In recent years, such has been the rapid and successful growth of their corporate profits that Facebook, Amazon, Google, Alphabet and Microsoft (FAGAMi) firms specialising in the design or exploitation of identity theft, big data analytics and automated social media advertising that they have had to create new digital accumulation opportunities.
    [Show full text]
  • F13 Issue 4 – November 13, 2013
    Note: This document is hosted here for archival purposes only. It does not necessarily represent the values of the Iron Warrior or Waterloo Engineering Society in the present day. 1 THE NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO ENGINEERING SOCIETY VOLUME 34 ISSUE 14 | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2013 Top Feelz Only People Addicted to Pros and Cons of Grad School The Rise of Indie Games Linkbaiting sites will Understand Page 3 Page 8 Page 13 facebook.com/TheIronWarrior twitter.com/TheIronWarrior iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca More Woes for Blackberry CEO Heins Ousted as part of $1 Billion Investment Deal VINCENT MAGAS 2A MANAGEMENT Hope, change, and the return to glory: these are just some of the things that many once believed Thorsten Heins was capable of. As time passed and the situation only got worse, the struggle finally ended. Thorsten Heins, the man thought to be capable of changing the fate of the Canadian smartphone maker once known as Research in Motion was recently ousted. Blackberry announced that Thorsten Heins has stepped down as CEO. This change in management has been part a $1 billion investment deal with Fairfax Financial Holdings, who initially wished to purchase the company back in September. Heins originally joined Blackberry (then Research in Motion) back in 2007. He assumed different roles throughout the company, notably first as senior vice president of the Blackberry Handheld Business Unit. He also acted as Chief Operating Officer of Product Engineering, and as a Chief Operating Officer of Product Sales from 2011 until he assumed his role as a CEO. It was in January 2012 when he was announced to succeed the BlackBerry company founders Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis stepped down from their roles as co- CEOs.
    [Show full text]
  • EE204: Business Management for Electrical Engineers and Computer Scientists Introductory Case, April 2, 2013
    EE204: Business Management for Electrical Engineers and Computer Scientists Introductory Case, April 2, 2013 Research in Motion and the Future 2013 Introduction On March 29, 2012, RIM, the maker of BlackBerry, announced a review of its future business strategy and its plan to refocus on the enterprise business [1]. New RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said, "we plan to build on our strength [enterprise business]” [2]. “Consumer-friendly features like entertainment applications are not important to the company's core customers.” Mr. Heins’ comments were a response to the declining fortunes at RIM. The company announced that revenues are dropping and it will cut 2,000 jobs. Heins was appointed CEO following the 2012 forced resignations of co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. CEO Thorsten Heins couldn’t help but wonder if his strategy were correct and whether the actions and plans were going to reverse the company’s negative slide. History RIM was founded in 1984 by 23-year-old University of Waterloo student Mike Lazardis. The original BlackBerry wireless platform and line of handhelds achieved dominance in the corporate marketplace by offering an always-on, highly secure, and easy-to-use immediate push message delivery service. On August 18, 2009, Fortune named RIM the fastest growing company in the world. In recent years, senior executives from IBM and major telecommunications companies have been hired to address this growth challenge. Market Organizations that relied on sensitive information, like the US government and financial institutions, were early and loyal adopters. RIM also had success in a consumer market fueled by “always-on” celebrities like Madonna and Paris Hilton.
    [Show full text]
  • The Catalyst of It&C Industry. a Case Study of Blackberry Company
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Directory of Open Access Journals Change and Leadership 55 leadership and innovation – the Catalyst of it&C industry. a Case study of BlackBerry Company ~ Ph.D. Camelia Cojocaru (Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, Romania) E-mail: [email protected] ~ Ph.D. Silviu Cojocaru (Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, Romania) E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: IT&C companies need to adapt themselves to an environment featuring a high level of competition. Innovation stays as the main vector of the domain, while the renewal rate of new technologies grows in speed (there are cases where new technologies emerge and replace the older ones in months). With this series of research we aim to analyse several local or global companies within the IT&C field, as well as the importance of leadership for their development. This first article will focus on leadership within a com- pany called Research In Motion – RIM (currently named BlackBerry) and on the main problems that have arisen within the company after the organisation was left without support from the leaders that created its worldwide brand. Key words: information technology, productivity, leadership, management, operational im- provements JEL Classification: J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice 1. Introduction no organization involved in innovation may exist without leadership. The correla- IT&C is a very dynamic domain, where tion between management and leadership innovation processes play an extremely im- is vital for organizations. As the main func- portant role.
    [Show full text]
  • Blackberry Case Synopsis
    CASE SYNOPSIS Business 478 Prepared by: Aswin Kumar Candice Woods Giorgio Budolig Lucas Segars Qasim Nathoo Prepared for: Jerry Sheppard March 20, 2013 Blackberry, Then And Now Research In Motion (RIM) entered the mobile communications industry in 1984. The Waterloo, Ontario, company founded by Mike Laziridis, penetrated the market with two-way paging technology; developed as a substitute product for Motorola’s SkyTel. Following a series of financing in 1998, and a Co-CEO partnership with Jim Balsillie, the firm launched its first signature Blackberry device in 1999. The year following, RIM released its first smart-phone, the Blackberry Bold. This release marked the beginning of RIM’s journey, through the tumultuous and extremely volatile high technology industry. Initially, the firm’s iconic Blackberry device was riding the crest of the telecom wave. Its proprietary and unparalleled encryption technology made their device the globally preferred Smartphone amongst corporate clients and government agencies. The brand dominance soon permeated the individual consumer market. However, the company’s fortunes took a turn for the worst, as intense rivalry and innovative technology emerged. Competitors, such as Apple and Samsung entered the market in 2007, and soon became cultural phenomena. As their market share severely eroded, so did RIM’s share price. RIM’s shareholders lost almost 80% of their wealth in 2011 (Levy, 2011). Adding salt to the wounds, their world-renowned encrypted network experienced power outages in 2011, which affected millions of users for several days. Reeling from the new competition and network debacle, shareholders demanded changes within the firm. The Co-CEO’s stepped aside and a new CEO, Thorsten Heins, took the helm with a new strategic focus and a rebranding under the name of their signature device, Blackberry.
    [Show full text]