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Blackberry (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) advanced to the highest in a month after the Canadian smartphone maker agreed to buy its rival mobile security software maker Good Technology for $425mln in cash.
Shares rose to as high as C$10:35, the highet intraday price since August 4, and were trading up 0.9% at C$9.95 at 1:04 p.m. in Toronto. The stock has lost 22% since the beginning of the year.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said in a statement on Friday that it expects to realize about $160mln in revenue from the acquisition in the first year once the deal closes late in its fiscal third quarter.
Sunnyvale, California-based Good Technology competes with Blackberry in offering software that allows companies to manage mobile devices used by employees on corporate networks.
“By acquiring Good, Blackberry will better solve one of the biggest struggles for CIOs today, especially those in regulated industries: securely managing devices across any platform," Blackberry’s CEO John Chen said in the statement.
Blackberry, which once dominated the corporate smartphone arena, has been shifting its focus to providing software and services for enterprise customers, after losing ground to Apple and Samsung on the heels of the iPhone launch in 2007.
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch advised Good on the deal.