BlackBerry has drawn the interest of a handful of large tech firms to buy parts of the company’s business, despite the smartphone maker working through the process of selling the entire company.
BlackBerry has asked for preliminary expressions of interest from potential strategic buyers, including Google, Cisco, SAP, Intel and Asian rival LG and Samsung, by early next week, according to Reuters.
Reuters, which cites several sources familiar to the matter, said such a move is seen as an alternative to the agreement it made with Canadian insurer Fairfax Financial Holdings for a $4.7 billion takeover.
It's not certain if any of the interested parties will actually submit bids. None of the companies named by Reuters provided comment on its report, Reuters said.
Earlier, investment firm Cerberus Capital Management LP reportedly was looking to sign a confidentiality agreement with BlackBerry so that it could examine the company's books in a potential bid to buy BlackBerry, which last month reported a quarterly loss of nearly $1 billion after taking a writedown on unsold Z10 phones.
Meanwhile, BlackBerry is facing a class action lawsuit filed by a shareholder, alleging the company misled investors about its future, including how the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone would fare against competitors, says USA Today.
BlackBerry, formerly known as RIM, misled investors last year by saying that the company was "progressing on its financial and operational commitments," and that previews of its BlackBerry 10 platform were well received by developers, according to shareholder Marvin Pearlstein in a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Manhattan on Friday.