BlackBerry Ltd. completed the (US) $1-billion financing that the smartphone company announced early in November after Fairfax Financial scaled down a larger plan to buy the company outright.
More than half of the money came from two institutional investors: $300 million from Canso Investment Counsel Ltd. of Richmond Hill, Ont., and $250 million from Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., BlackBerry's largest shareholder, according to regulatory filings.
Fairfax and the other investors have another 30 days to buy an additional $250 million of the interest-paying notes, which can be used to buy BlackBerry shares for (US) $10 each.
BlackBerry had announced Just recently it was no longer seeking a buyer and would continue as an independent publicly-traded company, indirectly acknowledging that Fairfax hadn't found support for a $4.7-billion deal that required a group of investors to pay $9 per share in cash.
Funds managed by Mackenzie Financial invested $200 million, $100 million came from Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, $70 million from Virginia-based Markel Corp. and $10 million from Brookfield Asset Management of Toronto.
Funds managed by Manulife Financial Corp. also invested $70 million to acquire BlackBerry's convertible debt, which can be exchanged for shares of the company under certain conditions.
