On Friday, BlackBerry shares jumped 9 percent after Reuters reported exclusively that the company was considering going private. Nadia Damouni, Reuters corporate board correspondent, offers an inside look at the reporting behind the scoop.
Q. How did you get this exclusive?
A. BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion, has been a company that I have covered and followed for years — from the time I first alerted the world that Amazon had approached the device maker in 2011, earmarking the first signs that parties were making takeover overtures, to last week’s story that the board was open to a leverage buyout. Realizing that the company had a dire recent quarter made me increase efforts in reaching out to all my sources — ranging from corporate strategy heads, board members, private equity firms, investment bankers, lawyers and investor contacts. One of the most important components of getting a full and accurate picture was bringing in the beat reporter, in this case Euan Rocha and my private equity counterpart Greg Roumeliotis.
Q. What types of reporting/sourcing were involved?
A. These types of stories do not fall into your lap. It requires a huge amount of networking and building up trust among sources. That means going out, meeting with people face to face and being smart about sharing tips that you have garnered. One source can give you a nugget, and from there on it is up to you to put pieces of the puzzle together. In this case we spoke to a wide variety of sources from private equity to corporate strategy and board sources to deal makers.
Read more here.
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This is only a scoop if blackberry actually goes private - which, for a whole host of reasons, is unlikely. Otherwise, a board "considering" something is not a scoop. The board of my company is "considering" a sale to an intergalactic federation of alien investors. Came up in a board meeting, everyone had a chuckle, and we move on. These kinds of "scoops", while it did move the market, are the kind of white noise chatter that is more distracting than illuminating. Please stop lionizing it.