Following a report yesterday by Canada’s The Financial Post stating that Research In Motion (RIMM) might strip its two CEOs of their chairman role, Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek this morning writes that his own “checks” confirm “RIMM is likely to name Barbara Symiest as chairman.”
Misek, who maintains a Hold rating on RIM shares and a $14.50 price target, writes that Stymiest, 54, an executive at Royal Bank of Canada, is “one of the top executives in Canada,” and that her appointment would be a positive for the company, “as we believe she will initiate a formal strategic review, possibly trim costs in the hardware business, and possibly announce additional partnerships,” though it would do little to change the near-term trajectory of RIM’s business.
In fact, Misek thinks RIM has already moved in the direction of licensing its BlackBerry software to other smartphone vendors, though it may take some time for such a move to have any payoff:
We think some of this has already been started with RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others.This would help create a critical mass for the ecosystem and maintain RIM’s monthly service revenue; however, it puts more pressure on the hardware business in the short term. Longer term, it possibly gets people hooked on the RIM ecosystem and may in fact allow them to sell more BB 10 handsets (if they are able to create compelling handsets).
RIM shares today are down 58 cents, or 3.7%, at $14.93.
No comments:
Post a Comment