BlackBerry Looking To Sell Most of its Canadian Real Estate

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On Tuesday Canadian smartphone manufacturer, BlackBerry, said it intends to sell more than 3 million square feet of its real-estate in Canada, where the majority is located. The report is raising many questions about whether the company will remain in Canada.

Most of BlackBerry’s real-estate is located in Waterloo, although it also has many offices in Toronto and other parts of Ontario. In a statement, CEO of BlackBerry John Chen 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.”

BlackBerry has not commented on the potential value of the sale, but they said that it would sell the property holding “through a combination of sale-leaseback and vacant asset sales” using CBRE, a real-estate firm.

Chen was appointed chief executive and chairman back in November 2013 and commutes to Waterloo from Silicon Valley along with many other executives.

The company tried to revitalize its smartphone business with the release of BlackBerry 10, about one year ago. Needless to say, it did not work as well as they had hoped posting a fiscal third-quarter loss of $4.4 billion and a dramatic drop in revenue, part of the reason for the company’s frequent job cuts.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

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