BlackBerry (BB.TO)

Tried to get back into the smart phone business, but like others in the industry, it is no more. Thinks the current management is going to have to show that the software, technology is going to drive their growth. This is a “wait and see” situation.

He likes to buy stocks that are emerging from a consolidation or in an uptrend. This one is doing neither. You have flat highs and descending lows. Wait and see if it breaks out.

Given its risk profile, this is not something that would make it into his conservative portfolio. This is kind of at a fork in the road. Will they spinoff the hardware division? He doesn’t think they will part ways with the hardware. The losses in that space have subsided over the last year. This is too much of a bet on a turnaround.

(Market Call Minute.) Thinks it has a lot of upside and likes what John Chen is doing, but to turn around a big ship like this takes time.

CEO is very well remunerated at $89 million. However, it is not entirely all recurring compensation. He earns about $3 million a year, but when he joined the company, he got a very lumpy one time signing bonus, which was comprised of a lot of restricted stock. It remains to be seen whether he will meet the performance criteria, and actually realize on that, because it is tied to whether the shares outperform the NASDAQ, which has not been happening. Buying “value plays” in technology is a tough way to make money. Incentives motivate behaviour, and looking at the conditions attached to John Chen’s pay packet, the 3-year anniversary date is mid-November, so if you own the stock he would stick around to see what comes up between now and the anniversary date.

He still likes it. No one has come close to touching the quality of their network. It is hard to be anything else but patient and positive. The software is going gangbusters. He does not know what they are doing messing around with phones. There are elements of the company that are worth a lot.

A tough case, because at first it was a good gadget maker, but has now fallen behind the iPhones and Android’s, and is now trying to reinvent itself. It needs a catalyst to move it higher or lower, but there is a lot of uncertainty about its prospect.

It is difficult to evaluate. They don’t meet his criteria, but he does own FFH-T and they in turn own a lot of BB-T

Had a huge loss of over $600 million in the past quarter. Often one of the good things to do is to back a good jockey, and John Chen is a good jockey. Thinks he has the ability to turn this around. When you have a company like this that is very, very popular and very much in the news, if and when it turns, it can turn in a nanosecond. Thinks it is a worthwhile play.

This has been sort of left in the dust by Android and IOS phones. It looks like they will stop making physical phones in the next couple of years as the market keeps getting smaller and smaller. However, John Chen has done a good job increasing the software and service revenue, which is where they want to be eventually. At some point the company will be turned around and sold at a good price. There will be more bumps before that happens.

There seems to be some uncertainly. Chen thinks they can make it as a product builder, but also in other areas. There is a risk they don’t execute well. Their products are very, very good, but the business market may not do well. It is not a turnaround story any time soon. It is at the bottom of the range so consider accumulating it.

The difficult part for him is that the user base has gone down tremendously over the last little while. As they move towards trying to be more of a software company, that may help them, but that transition is going to take a fair bit of time. There are better companies to own.

(Market Call Minute.) He would own Apple (AAPL-Q) and keep it simple.

Doing their best to turn this into a mobile enterprise juggernaut, which he doesn’t think is going to happen. Most of the monetization of this story is baked into the price. The street has been downgrading this during April. Not something that will ever be on his radar.

(Market Call Minute.) The bad news is more or less baked into the stock. Execution needs to happen over the coming year.