Blackberry 2014 Annual Report Download - page 14

6
Inter-corporate Relationships
The Company has three material subsidiaries, all of which are wholly-owned, directly or indirectly, by the Company.
Name of Subsidiary Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization
BlackBerry Corporation Delaware, U.S.A.
BlackBerry UK Limited England and Wales
BlackBerry Singapore Pte. Limited Singapore
GENERAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BUSINESS
A global leader in wireless innovation, the Company revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry
solution in 1999. Today, the Company aims to inspire the success of its millions of customers around the world by continuously
pushing the boundaries of mobile experiences.
Product and business developments that have influenced the general development of the Company’s business over the last three
fiscal years are as follows:
Fiscal 2014:
• Announced on August 12, 2013, the formation of a Special Committee by the Board to explore strategic alternatives to
enhance value and increase scale to accelerate BlackBerry 10 deployment;
• Announced on September 23, 2013, that the Company had signed a letter of intent (the “LOI”) with Fairfax Financial
Holdings Limited (“Fairfax”), a Canadian company led by Prem Watsa, under which a consortium to be led by Fairfax
proposed to acquire the Company;
• Announced on November 4, 2013, that in lieu of the transaction contemplated by the LOI, the Company had entered into
an agreement pursuant to which Fairfax and other institutional investors would subscribe for $1 billion aggregate principal
amount of 6% unsecured subordinated convertible debentures, with an option to purchase an additional $250 million
principal amount of debentures (collectively, the “Debentures”). The announcement of this financing marked the
conclusion of the strategic review process previously announced by the Board. The initial $1 billion investment of
Debentures was completed on November 13, 2013, and the option to purchase the additional $250 million of Debentures
was completed on January 16, 2014 (collectively, the “Debenture Financing”);
• The Debenture Financing resulted in the following changes to the Board and management team:
• appointment of John Chen as Executive Chair of the Board and Interim Chief Executive Officer,
• appointment of Prem Watsa as Lead Director of the Board and Chair of the Compensation, Nomination and
Governance Committee, and
• resignations of Thorsten Heins as Chief Executive Officer and a director, and David Kerr as a director;
• Announced the Company’s plan to transition the business to focus on four areas: the Devices business, Enterprise Services,
the QNX Embedded business and Messaging;
• Announced further management and Board changes as part of the on-going reorganization of BlackBerry including:
• appointment of James Yersh as Chief Financial Officer (replacing Brian Bidulka),
• appointment of Eric Johnson as President, Global Sales,
• appointment of Ron Louks as President, Devices and Emerging Solutions,
• appointment of James S. Mackey as Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategic Planning,
• appointment of Mark Wilson as Senior Vice President, Marketing,
• appointment of John Sims as President, Global Enterprise Services,
• resignations of Kristian Tear as Chief Operating Officer and Frank Boulben as Chief Marketing Officer, and
• resignation of Roger Martin from the Board;
• Announced a joint device development and manufacturing agreement with Foxconn, initially focusing on the development
of a consumer smartphone for Indonesia and other fast-growing markets;
• Announced in March 2014 the entry into an agreement for the divestiture of the majority of its real estate holdings in
Canada, with an expected closing in the first quarter of fiscal 2015;
• Announced in February 2014 new enterprise solutions, partnerships and smartphone models, including the next generation
of BES (BES 12) that will unify BES 10 and BES 5 onto one platform. BES 12 will enable organizations to develop
enterprise-grade applications that are quickly deployed to BlackBerry smartphones and other mobile devices and provide
customers with the ability to move securely from on-premise to the cloud effortlessly. The Company also announced a
new BES pricing and licensing structure (Silver and Gold) and a new EZ pass program that will enable customers to
move from BES and other mobile device management (“MDM”) programs to BES 10 or BES 12 at the Silver level of
service for free, the eBBM Suite (a new family of products and services, including BBM Protected, that will work with
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