R.W. Baird’s William Power, who maintains an Underperform rating on shares of Research in Motion (RIMM) and a $20 price target, weighs in on the spike in RIM shares today over what appear to be take-out rumors of various stripes — the latest being buzz about a potential interest in the company by Vodafone (VOD).
RIM shares are currently up $2.86, or almost 14%, at $23.86 and traded as high as $24.37 earlier in the session.
Power sees the Vodafone speculation as “far-fetched.”
“While Vodafone certainly sells a lot of BlackBerry devices, an acquisition of a device manufacturer would be a significant surprise, and would significantly change the model.”
Like Sanford Bernstein’s Pierre Ferragu earlier this morning, Power is skeptical any other potential suitors are really inclined to make a move:
Although owning an OS might seem attractive to an Android OEM like HTC (2498TW) or Samsung [Electronics (SSNLF)], neither RIM’s legacy BB OS nor its unproven QNX OS seem likely to generate interest on that basis. Microsoft had been rumored as a potential buyer in the past, though we believe Nokia (NOK) could make more sense at this point (long-term) from a platform perspective.
Power thinks the patent value of RIM is a fraction of the current market cap, at just $2.5 billion to $3 billion.
Then again, where there’s smoke, there’s fire…
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