BlackBerry’s stock price jumped nearly 30% in late trading Wednesday after Reuters reported that Samsung approached the tech company with an offer to buy it for as much as $7.5 billion.
The Reuters report, based on “a person familiar with the matter,” said Samsung was interested in BlackBerry’s patent portfolio. Reps from both companies could not be reached for comment.
Before Reuters’ article was published, Samsung proposed buying BlackBerry for between $13.35 and $15.49 per share, which was a premium of 38% to 60% over BlackBerry’s share price. That price translates to $6 billion to $7.5 billion.
Previous estimates for the worth of BlackBerry’s patents have ranged from $200 million to $5 billion.
If the report proves to be true, it will be a testimony to Sybase veteran John Chen’s turnaround effort at the company, which many had written off a year ago.
Since Chen joined in November 2013 as CEO, he has laid off 40% of the company’s workforce and launched the Passport, a 3.6-inch model with a square display.
Still, the company’s share of the smartphone market — which was as high as 47% in 2010 — is now south of 1%, according to the International Data Corporation.
Chen has focused on carving out a niche in the market for business professionals who might have an iPhone for their personal life, but use a BlackBerry for work.
Chen’s efforts have made a modest BlackBerry comeback likely, but the company’s viability continues to be determined by its patents.
In today’s litigation-mad tech industry, patents are increasingly important, as evidenced by Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola in 2011.
Google sold Motorola to Lenovo last January, but retained the lion’s share of Motorola’s patents.
