Former BlackBerry CEO Sells Out

Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEO of BlackBerry and once one of its largest individual shareholders, is a shareholder no more.

According to a new regulatory filing, Balsillie dumped his stake in BlackBerry late last year, unloading about 26.8 million shares — roughly 5 percent of the company he helped found.

Balsillie hasn’t responded to a request for comment on the sale, and BlackBerry declined to provide one, saying it doesn’t comment on holdings of individual shareholders. But it’s hard not to view the move by Balsillie, once BlackBerry’s biggest evangelist, as a vote of no confidence in the company’s comeback plan, which began in earnest earlier this year with the debut of BlackBerry 10 and the handsets on which it runs. Certainly that’s the way the market has taken it.

In pre-market trading Thursday, RIM’s shares tanked more than 6 percent, tumbling to about $13.