Questionable decisions have plagued BlackBerry’s co-founders for years, but one decision that even the analysts have condoned is Mike Lazaridis’ recent sale of more than 3 million shares of the company’s stock. A quick glance at BlackBerry’s recent history might scare off even the most uninformed investors, so Lazaridis took advantage of the huge spike following the Foxconn news and interim CEO Jason Chen’s confidence-building comments during the company’s earnings call to dump a significant portion of his stake.
The Wall Street Journal shares comments from two BlackBerry analysts following Lazardis’ move:
- “It’s smart for him to sell now, while it’s still a liquid stock,” said Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Hudson Square Research.
- “I think they’re finally seeing the writing on the wall,” said Edward Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research.
Even with the surprising spike, BlackBerry’s stock is still down 36% in 2013, and it dropped a further 4% the day after Lazaridis sold a chunk of his shares. The former BlackBerry co-CEO has also confirmed that he no longer plans to prepare a joint bid to buy BlackBerry.
