Lazaridis Won’t Dump His Shares — Unlike a Certain Other Former BlackBerry Co-CEO
Mike Lazaridis, co-founder and former co-CEO of BlackBerry, will step down from the smartphone maker’s board on May 1, and he’s taking his shares with him.
Asked Thursday if he planned to divest his BlackBerry stake, which amounts to nearly six percent of the company’s outstanding shares, Lazaridis said he’s going to hold on to them for the time being. “I’m really proud of what we built together at RIM, and I believe I’m leaving it in good hands, and remain one of its largest shareholders,” he told Reuters.
Lazaridis’s decision to hold on to his BlackBerry shares is the bi-polar opposite of the one made by his colleague and former co-CEO Jim Balsillie.
Balsillie, who was also once one of BlackBerry’s largest individual shareholders, dumped his entire stake in the company a few months ago in a move that was viewed by some as a vote of no confidence in its comeback plan.