Thorsten Heins, the CEO of Canadian handset maker RIM, has admitted that the company could consider a sale after announcing a steep fall in revenues and sales yesterday.
Heins said, in a statement, that RIM would start a “comprehensive review of…
Thorsten Heins, the CEO of Canadian handset maker RIM, has admitted that the company could consider a sale after announcing a steep fall in revenues and sales yesterday.
Heins said, in a statement, that RIM would start a “comprehensive review of strategic opportunities”, which include partnerships, JVs and other means to leverage the company’s assets and maximise value for its shareholders.
In a call with analysts, when asked whether the company would consider a sale, Heins said: “If there is any element that we detect during that strategic review that would lead us into this direction, we would consider it, but it is not the main direction we are pursuing right now.”
Reports net loss
In its results yesterday, RIM announced a net loss of US$125m for the quarter up to 3 March (Q4 fiscal 2012). It had reported net income of US$265m in the prior quarter.
This loss reflected pre-tax charges of US$355m for an impairment of goodwill and US$267m for an “inventory provision” mainly taken on some of its Blackberry 7 products.
Without these charges, the adjusted net income of Q4 fiscal 2012 was US$418m.
RIM also reported revenue of US$4.2bn for Q4 fiscal 2012, a 25% fall from the same period last year.
It shipped around 11.1 million Blackberry smartphones during the last quarter, which included the Christmas period. This was a decline of 21% compared to sales in the previous quarter.
Net income for the whole year up to 3 March 2012 was US$1.2bn, down from US$3.4bn in the previous year.
Board changes
Meanwhile, RIM also announced that three key executives will be leaving the company.
Jim Balsillie, a former co-CEO and co-founder of RIM, has resigned from the board. RIM also said that David Yach is retiring as the company’s CTO and that Jim Rowan, the COO of global operations, has “decided to pursue other interests”.
RIM has started looking for a new COO.
In January, Balsillie stepped down from the co-CEO role in order to become RIM’s vice chair and head of its innovation committee. During the same set of changes, Thorsten Heins was appointed as CEO.
