Prem Watsa expected to take BlackBerry private
Investment guru Prem Watsa has never shied away from a challenge, but he is no corporate raider, instead preferring to take the long-term view
Just over a year ago, Watsa said Research in Motion, now re-named BlackBerry, was a "Canadian success story", a good buy and a likely turn-around story despite market-share losses.
BlackBerry's fortunes have only deteriorated since then, but Watsa, chief executive of top BlackBerry shareholder Fairfax Financial in Toronto, is an old hand at looking wrong today and right tomorrow.
Watsa, 61, resigned from BlackBerry's board last week, seven months after joining, and is now expected to try to orchestrate a delisting of the company. Having spent US$880 million buying nearly 10 per cent of BlackBerry's shares at an average price of US$17, he is the largest shareholder and is sitting on a potential US$270 million loss.
Born in 1950 in Hyderabad, India, and trained as a chemical engineer, Watsa has a public profile that has at times bordered on the reclusive since he took over Fairfax in 1985.
For his first 15 years at the company he barely spoke to a reporter, and he only started holding real investor conference calls in 2001.