BlackBerry To Sell Majority Of Real Estate Holdings In Canada

(RTTNews) - Struggling Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd. (BBRY, BB.TO) said Tuesday that it plans to sell the majority of its real estate holdings in Canada, noting that the move will further boost its financial flexibility and raise additional cash to support its operations. However, the company added that it remained committed to being based in Waterloo.

BlackBerry said that it in partnership with commercial real estate services company CBRE Limited (CBG), it plans to strategically divest the majority of its commercial real estate portfolio through a combination of sale-leaseback and vacant asset sales. The properties to be offered for sale comprise over 3 million square feet of space.

Further, BlackBerry said it will not comment on the potential value of a sale and will disclose further information as required in connection with any definitive sale transaction.

John Chen, BlackBerry CEO and Executive Chair, said, "BlackBerry remains committed to being headquartered in Waterloo and having a strong presence in Canada along with other global hubs. This initiative will further enhance BlackBerry's financial flexibility, and will provide additional resources to support our operations as our business continues to evolve."

In late December, BlackBerry reported a $4.40 billion loss for the third quarter, reflecting one-time charges and weak demand for its devices. Further, the company said it entered into a five-year joint device development and manufacturing agreement with Taiwan-based Foxconn, which is also the manufacturer of Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPhones and iPads.

Initial focus of the partnership will be the development of a consumer smartphone for Indonesia and other fast-growing markets targeting early 2014.

In November 2013, Blackberry said it dropped plans to sell itself and replaced Chief Executive Thorsten Heins with John Chen as interim CEO. At that time, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., holder of a 10 percent stake in Blackberry, backed off from its bid to buy the company and instead agreed to to invest about $1 billion along with other institutional investors.

BlackBerry, once a leader in the smartphone segment, fell into hard times after Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPhones and devices running on Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android platform began to dominate the market.

BBRY closed Tuesday's regular session at $9.93, up $0.85 or 9.36 percent on a volume of 71.79 million shares. In after-hours, the stock further gained $0.16 or 1.61 percent to $10.09.