Investor lobs sueball at BlackBerry, says it 'misled' shareholders A BlackBerry shareholder has filed a lawsuit accusing the company and its chief exec and CFO of inflating its share price with unrealistic promises about BB10, leading to thousands of investors getting burnt. The suit was filed in federal court in Manhattan, New York, by one Marvin Pearlstein, in the names of "thousands" of …
"Lack of precognition is not a crime"
Well... unless you're an Italian geophysicist...
At any rate, what would this guy have preferred BB to say? "Man, this smoldering piece of shit is D-O-A! Sell, sell, sell - our finger's on the handle and this toilet's about to flush, baby!"? I'm not sure that would have resulted in a terribly positive outcome for investors either...
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"Didn't Elop drive the share price down 60% during his tenure?"
Elop rescued Nokia from a death spiral.
Not that selling the devices unit is such a good deal for share holders though now that Windows Phone is the fastest growing OS....and Nokia are forecast back into profit anyway....
So are you saying that sometime ago Microsoft decided Nokia was an aquisition target.
Did they plant Elop in there as a Trojan Horse to get the full skinny on whether it was a financially attractive target.
He may have advised Microsoft to only go for the Device's business unit as the rest had no real value to Microsoft.
Maybe in return for his "vast" Golden Handcuffs payout from his Microsoft contract and his Golden Hello return to Microsoft contract Elop might have been tasked with driving the Nokia Share price down 60%.
This could have in effect funded the purchase price of Nokia Devices for Microsoft.......
Anything underhanded about that?.............
All above board?............
Nokia shareholders disadvantaged?............
Wonder if Mr Pearlstein backed this horse as well?
next claim in his pipeline perhaps
They may be shareholders but having been in a position of a shareholder where the board lied to you, it's not so much about recovering the money you lost as attempting to send a message that if you lie about your company to those people who own it, then you'll pay the consequences as damn well you should.
Risk is part and parcel of company ownership, and you accept that as a shareholder, but in order to manage that risk and your exposure, the shareholders elect the board to inform them of the companies doings. When they lie, they should be strung up for it - as they are guilty of negligence, and it pretty much amounts to saying "everything is fine, keep paying me." Considering just how much these board members are paid to do their job, which is to act in the interests of shareholders, not against them, when they don't do it then they should be expected to be defending themselves in court with pretty hefty sanctions being applied if they lose.
So no, it's not about reviving the companies fortunes, it's about removing freeloading parasites who will say anything to keep being paid for another month even though they know that the company is finished. (PS, I'm not a BB shareholder so I don't really care in this instance, but just giving you my views of why somebody might take this sort of action|)
The company didn't lie, they honestly thought BB10 would be a success. Investing is about taking what the companies say, taking what analysts say, understanding how the customers react and making assessed decisions based on that information.
This guy bought BB when it was clear to everyone they were dying, and now he wants his money back. Investing is a zero sum game, for people to win, others have to lose. This guy is a loser. Suck it up, princess.
"Man, this smoldering piece of shit is D-O-A! Sell, sell, sell - our finger's on the handle and this toilet's about to flush, baby!"
Quality work.
Sadly I feel such subtle hints may not have been direct enough for some investors. What I believe they call in the investment trade stupid.
Modern tech marketing is not a one player game. In fact, I would argue that 3rd parties do more to hype a company or product than the manufacturer itself.
Companies like Gartner and IDC take statements from CEO's and balloon the thing into a near fiction. They make assessments and predictions based on next to nothing, push their view onto investors/brokers and don't take any of the flack when their unfounded assessments fail to materialize.
Analysts predictions always get more press than the boring statements from senior management. That's because they deliver figures that can be measured, unlike most corporate statements.
Either analysts are important partners in making assessments and weighting markets or they are not. If they are important they should be on the hook for the validity of their information. If they are not important they should be ignored, they'll go away on their own. Having it both ways simply shows a lack of commitment on their part. A lack of faith in their own information.
I guess they felt that as a shareholder they were an unsecured creditors, but that as a party to litigation they might rank more highly in the cash claim queue. As others have said, all shareholders would have an arguable cases had the company not tried to talk up its new product. Given a foibles of the US legal system they possible think that their US$ x stake could earn an award payment of many times US$x.
The risk is that a long drawn out case could see them recover nothing at all as such lawsuits are a great way to kill of any lingering chance of any recovery. Could it be a case of bullet meet foot?
But there is no recovery, Blackberry is being marketted as a snatch and grab to various parties. When the company is broken up and sold off in pieces then there is no longer a company for the shareholders to get their money back from. Best they can hope for is to litigate and stall the sell-off while it goes through the court.
If I go into a casino, and they say "The odds of winning roulette are 1 in 8 if you bet here" and I bet there 8 times and fail to win each time. Can I sue them for misleading me into thinking I'd get my money back and then some?
I mean I always viewed the stock market as "intelligent high stakes gambling"
Did anyone seriously think BB had any future ? .....Anonymous Coward Posted Monday 7th October 2013 13:05 GMT
Well, many didn't expect them to roll over and surrender without a fight and leave their troupers without ammunition to wage greater intelligent virtualware war games against mediocre global opposition, AC. Would BB10 phone holders be due a full refund for a grave mis-selling operation and/or be entitled to a free transfer to another mobile phone operating system? Or do customers not matter a jot?
*Although maybe top management had nothing novel and game-changing to offer ie they be intellectual property bankrupt
I am pretty sure every statement issued by BB (note, I am a shareholder, and a lot poorer than I used to be
:-( ), includes the weasel words at the end that say that this is a forward looking statement and represents the beliefs and hopes of management and not facts. I'm pretty sure that this will get kicked out of court in no time flat, ok, in lawyer time, which will cost me even more money :-((.
"They may be shareholders but having been in a position of a shareholder where the board lied to you, it's not so much about recovering the money you lost as attempting to send a message that if you lie about your company to those people who own it, then you'll pay the consequences as damn well you should."
People that had the board lie to them should be able to recover. However, BB did not lie, they actually thought they would recover the company's fortunes. Furthermore, I looked at the Sep 27, 2012 press release -- all it shows is BB10 gaining momentum and a few early adopters saying how much they like it. It makes no predictions whatsoever on future usage or popularity. Investors: ***PLEASE*** NOTE!!!! When a platform is new and has almost no users, *IT WILL SHOW HUGE PERCENTAGE INCREASES* in almost every stat, and this is meaningless is guessing how widely it'll be adopted by the public!
This is why every statement of this type, from any company, has text like the following (this is actually from the Sep 27, 2012 press release, with another paragraph or two of text telling where to look up risk factors to the company and such.):
" "Forward-looking statements in this news release are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When used herein, words such as "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "should", "intend", "believe", and similar expressions, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by BlackBerry Limited in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that BlackBerry believes are appropriate in the circumstances."
F-d. I have a Z10, in fact I am typing on it now over lte. As I said before on this site I have a iPad Surface Pro for apps, PCs for work, and want a phone that is a phone. And the Z10 is far better than an iToy or droid. Come on, IOS 6 gave better facecrook, and 7 gives? Droid, Google, Web stats, we know who you are, no thank you! I am typing on QNX and not some hack version of UNIX. BB10 should have done better, good luck suing them you economy sucking scum! Then back to the USA so you can finish her off, eh!p
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