Thorsten Heins Speak In Waterloo, Our Takeaway
Long/Short Equity, Special Situations, Contrarian
Seeking Alpha Analyst Since 2012
Listening to the conference call live from Waterloo Canada for the BlackBerry (BBRY) became more insightful after speaking with an expert on linguistics and how speech varies from country to country. More on this later. First we want to address the current shorts outstanding in BBRY shares and the negative rebate borrow rate-NRBR- because today after the market close, NASDAQ will report short interest numbers for the end of June. We will know very soon how much of the recent selling of BBRY shares stems from shorts adding to their position. As of last week, the NRBR was 11.5% annual. We will have an update in our next article after the short report is published by Nasdaq.
While listening -we encourage you to listen-to BBRY CEO Thorsten Heins give his presentation, we heard a thumping noise when he had the ever so slight inclination in his voice. He is not an emotional speaker by any stretch of the imagination. However, the thumping seems to be his hand pounding against the podium from which he was speaking.
We are told by Europeans that the hand pounding or thumping is a sign of extreme conviction and therefore must conclude Thorsten meant what he said sincerely. We think its a good start, but he must move much more quickly with regards to transparency. He is too old school and is not embracing the world he himself describes as the connection of all things. From his remarks:
"...the software update management for automotive facilitates machine-to-machine communication directly between the automaker and the vehicle. It allows the automaker to easily provide software updates to the car and to the client using our infrastructure that is already globally deployed.
And we're using it today to update millions of BlackBerry out there. We can use this to update every mobile computing endpoints out there, be it a car, be it a smartphone, be it a telemetry element, be it something in healthcare, this is what the network can do. ..."
But with all do respect, these words are not enough to squelch the critics who accuse BBRY of hiding behind their numbers regarding their rollout. The quote by Winston Churchill, "There is nothing to fear but fear itself" is our message to Thorsten: Be upfront and realtime about sales. Announce them on Twitter or BBM. Make the shorts by a Z or Q10 to get the blow by blow on how sales are doing. Make transparency a marketing tool and not a distraction from what your goals are. We are one of the few SA authors who still believe in BlackBerry. Show the world you are not afraid of the truth.
Disclosure: I am long BBRY.
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