Lazaridis, Qualcomm reportedly mulling a joint bid for BlackBerry with Cerberus

Back in September, Fairfax Financial wrote a letter of intent to purchase BlackBerry for $4.7 billion. In that letter, November 4th was given as a goal (but not a deadline) to complete the transaction.

At the same time, there have also been other interested parties. We know that former BlackBerry co-CEO Mike Lazaridis and his business partner Douglas Fregin have been trying to figure out how to raise enough capital to out-bid Fairfax. We also know that Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based investment firm, was looking to do the same.

Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that both parties, Lazaridis and Cerberus, are trying to join forces in an attempt to become BlackBerry’s new owners. There are no specifics are to how they plan to raise the necessary funds to outbid Fairfax — itself also building partnerships with investment funds behind the scene — but we’ll likely find out on Monday.

In recent news, Facebook has also been in talks with BlackBerry about a potential acquisition, but the Lazaridis/Cerberus coalition seems to be the only true threat to Fairfax thus far.

Update – 4:51pm: Things are getting heated today. Apparently joining Cerberus and the co-founders of BlackBerry is Qualcomm. A quick tweet by CNBC states their sources believe “Qualcomm in talks to join Cerberus and BlackBerry co-founders on possible BlackBerry bid.” – IH

[source]Wall Street Journal[/source]