BlackBerry developer Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) has been approached by International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) about a possible sale of its enterprise services unit, Bloomberg News reported, citing two insiders.
The approach for the unit of the Waterloo, Ontario-based smartphone developer was informal, the report said. Such a bid has been advocated for months by activist shareholder Victor Alboini of Toronro's Jaguar Financial, who in earlier interviews has urged a bidder like IBM or Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the world's biggest software company to buy the BlackBerry support business.
New RIM CEO hired Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE: RY) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) to provide strategic advice to the company but has remained committed to keeping the company whole in remarks to investors at the company's July annual meeting.
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Neither RIM nor IBM, in Armonk, N.Y., would comment on the report.
RIM shares rose 7 percent in premarket trading Friday to $8.32, up 52 cents, on the report. They're down 67 percent for the past 52 weeks.
This article is copyrighted by International Business Times, the business news leader