Blackberry: The Good, The Bad, and the Shift in Momentum

If we can agree on one thing related to BBRY, it is that everyone has an opinion.  There are a lot of topics keeping the bulls and bears talking.  

The good: 

• Shift in focus to the secure email and enterprise security, through internal growth and potentially acquisitions.
• Dividing the company into operating units: Enterprise Services, Messaging, QNX Embedded, and Devices.  This allows each unit to grow the business independently and sets up the possibility to spin off one or more units if a good opportunity arrises.
• New CEO has a proven track record for turnarounds.
• The company now has $3Bn in cash on the balance sheet plus access to an undrawn credit facility of about $250mm.
• New head of Devices business hired from Sony/Ericsson.
• The new convert provided $1Bn in additional liquidity at 6% interest with a conversion price of $10.  The investor has until Jan 13 to exercise an option to purchase an additional $250mm of the convert.  Note that the option was extended from mid-December (that should go under the bad).
• The convert was issued to Fairfax in lieu of an original plan to buy the company for $9 / share.

The bad:

• Co-founder Michael Lazaridis just sold his position down to <5%
• Just announced an asset impairment of $2.7Bn and a reduction in inventory value of [?], primarily B10 devices.  Additional inventory writedowns are possible.

• Revenues continue to decline across operating units.

To evaluate an investment in $BBRY, these factors are all irrelevant.  They are all in the past.  All this information is priced into the stock.  In fact, a lot of the bad news was priced in ahead of the earnings announcement so that the actual announcement produced a positive spike in the stock.    

The critical question is, what (if anything) will be the catalyst for a stock price recovery?  Some investors hope that is the Foxconn deal.  The partnership will help avoid some of the inventory risk issues BBRY is currently dealing with, which is a positive for the company.  In addition, the deal allows BBRY to focus on other areas of the company where it has a competitive advantage, such as secure email and messaging.  The catalyst could be a change in attitude about the stock due to the CEO and the new deal.  Positive news improves the company's image which can come around to improve revenues and results.  We can't be sure what the catalyst will be at this point.  One thing is for sure, it feels like there is a lot of strength in the stock since the announcement. 

On this name in particular, there is a good amount of upside if the company is able to turn around its image and deal with the many issues around mostly the hardware.  The stock could double to the $15 range.  There is also a good amount of risk to the downside if they are unable to succeed with the turnaround plan.  It feels like a binary situation where either (a) they are able to turn around and the stock doubles (or more), or (b) they can’t turn things around and the stock price plummets.  Given all the hype, there is likely to be a lot of volatility.  In these types of situations, I think options offer the best value proposition.  I am long the Jan ‘15 $7 calls.

How are you playing Blackberry?  

Written by Jennifer Galperin.  Follow me on Twitter and StockTwits.