Pantech Puts Itself Up for Sale, Seeking A Cool $366 Million

Pantech, based in Korea, has staked a For Sale sign in its front lawn. The company, which declared the equivalent of bankruptcy last month, is seeking a buyer to scoop up the entire business. Pantech has been facing trouble all year long. It twice sought delays in debt payments and entered into court receivership in August. The company believes it will fetch a higher price if sold as a single entity (approx. $366 million) rather than broken up and sold in pieces (approx. $181 million). 

Bids for the company are due in early October. Pantech found itself unable to compete with Samsung and LG, which are also based in Korea. It faced financial losses six quarters in a row, which led to its debt problems and eventual bankruptcy.

Source: CNET

Vodafone Confirms Talks To Sell Verizon Stakes

Vodafone today confirmed reports that it is in talks with Verizon Communications to sell its 45% stake of Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone. The companies held talks earlier this year, but no deal was reached. The two firms rekindled their discussions in July due to changes in the financial markets that make the deal more attractive to both companies. Verizon is working with banks to raise about $60 billion to help with the buyout. The total cost of the deal is said to between $100 and $130 billion. Vodafone said that it would use any funds raised by the sale to help with other acquisitions and to pay down debt.


Source: Reuters

United Vision Marketing Firm Has Offered To Acquire RIM

Yes, this just happened. It’s real. A firm by the name United Vision Marketing has a announced today that they are offering to buy Research In Motion’s BlackBerry assets. There’s no word from RIM just yet, but let’s hope we hear something soon. What do you think RIM will do please sound off in the comment section? Would be a good idea to accept the offer or not?

Check out the press release below for more info.

Press Release

NEW YORK, April 5, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — United Vision Marketing Firms CEO announces today that they are making an offer to Research In Motion (RIM) to acquire its Black Berry assets. The decision was made to acquire RIM after a strategy session with UVMF’s board members and consultants and the announcement by RIM’s new CEO of a possible sell of the company. The proposed deal is an all stock swap deal that will position RIM shareholders to be in a greater equity position by swapping for UVMF’s IPO stock price.

The team at UVMF feels the move is perfect timing on how to better leverage itself against other device makers. The deal will help the development of UVMF’S $1.6 Billion proposed Pearson Education Tablet (PET), take UVMF public and develop a new brand imaging campaign for Black Berry Products using UVMF’s entertainment ties.

UVMF is a much smaller company but is best known for its big ideas. One of the key innovators is the self proclaimed Dr. Nono C. Pearson who is the founder/ CEO of the firm. Dr. Pearson, who was born on Flag Day, started his career in music as a D.J. producer and song writer. Since then he has started and predicted new trends that have gone on to become the biggest in history and some of the worst trends in history, like our current economic crises.

One trend that Dr. Pearson has been more vocal about in past interviews is what he called “making country cool” in rap music. This was at the time when the east and west coast rap music ruled the air waves. It’s now documented that the “make country cool” movement in rap music has sold over 78 million records for the recording industry.

Now the 37 year old innovator is headed to Wall Street with the copyrights to prove that he is the owner of what he calls “Corporate Hip Hop” and once again he is pushing the concept through the entertainment business.

UVMF signed up a multi-platinum selling rapper to help set the trend that will help develop the market and leverage the acquisition deal. Some analysts are saying the deal is a good move as the “innovate or die” culture continues to proliferate on Wall Street says UVMF insiders.

“From day one we have been positioning United Vision Marketing Firm to be the Apple of the future in terms of out innovating the competition by continuously focusing on the best technology, creativity and delivering socially relevant content.” says Eze Redwood COO of UVMF.

Unlike much of the competition UVMF has a huge portfolio of socially relevant ideas to bring to market that will totally monetize its business model beyond advertising revenue.

“In past bubbles we have seen many firms receive high valuations without having a true business model for sustainable growth. This model is what caused the final domino to fall in 1929 to create the great depression, shortly after a temporary credit fix that eventually came to an end. We are continuously hyping economic predictions in sectors such as education, technology, and finance; in which there are little to no real sustainable growth strategies for the future. Most of our youth are unengaged with many of these products or simply just can’t afford them. Soon the bottom will fall out of that trend if we don’t face the truth. United Vision Marketing Firm has the innovative business model to help create real sustainable growth for our clients. Our most valued asset is having the human capital that has the passion to actually go out and develop the markets. We fully understand having that kind of leverage alone is priceless.” Says Dr. Nono C. Pearson CEO of United Vision Marketing Firm.

T-Mobile Could Sell Its Tower To Raise Money

In an aggressive move to raise money, T-Mobile is looking at selling some of its cell towers to help finance its ambitious vision of an LTE 4G network.

Apparently, the fourth largest cell phone company in the United States has gotten the ball moving already, obtaining the services of TAP Advisors to explore a sale, according to Bloomberg. A potential sale could garner as much as $3 billion.

Although this move makes much sense, T-Mobile has yet to come out and make any word of a tower sale official, as the company stated to AllThingsD “A tower sale remains under consideration.” The company also added, “T-Mobile USA continues to evaluate a tower sale as part of its self-funding strategy, but [we] have no specific plans to detail at this time.”

Reading between the lines, the Bloomberg report might not be off base. Ultimately, we may not know if T-Mobile is indeed planning to sell off some of its towers, but it does bring the suspicion of them working behind the scenes to raise cash.

Regardless, after AT&T failed to buy T-Mobile, the company has been refocused on vastly improving its network. This ramped up dedication grew when parent company Deutsche Telekom signed off on a $4 billion investment to help upgrade the T-Mobile network to support LTE. This caused the company to layout details of its 4G LTE expansion.

Thanks to AT&T’s botched deal, DT will be able to reuse current spectrum as well as spectrum gained as part of the breakup fee.

Should Microsoft try harder to buy RIM?

Is RIM for sale? No, not really. And it sounds like the executives at the Waterloo-based company don’t really want to be “for sale,” either. Which is fine, since there are options out there; and there are people who want those options to work out. But, while options are great, there needs to be something actually done about it. Just talking, or saying how you want to do it all on your own can only get you so far. Especially when you’re doing it on your own and nothing seems to be working out. So, what needs to change? A change of management? Maybe. (Probably.) But, maybe it’s something bigger. Maybe Nokia and Microsoft should try a bit harder to buy the BlackBerry manufacturer.

If you’ll recall, a report came out that Microsoft and Nokia had jointly considered buying Research In Motion sometime over the summer of this year. While it would seem logical for Microsoft/Nokia to buy RIM, it apparently didn’t work out. There are probably plenty of reasons out there, but the most talked-about one is how RIM just decided that they weren’t for sale, and wouldn’t be for sale. Fantastic news, as long as we go with the idea that RIM has a trick up their sleeve, which they will unveil with a burst of energy next year. Early next year, that is. Anything later, like near the “late 2012” launch of the first BB10 devices and it’s too late.

And maybe that’s why the purchase by Microsoft is actually really, really important. We’ll get to the details here in a moment, but let’s take a swing at the bigger picture first. RIM isn’t Microsoft. And how I mean that is that time isn’t on RIM’s side. At all. People have a different outlook on the future of Research In Motion, and it’s not this “slow and steady wins the race” approach at all. People are talking about RIM’s downfall, and it’s apparently imminent.

So, those details I mentioned above. Truthfully, I think Tim Bajarin put it pretty clearly at Techpinions: RIM still has assets that the corporate world wants, like security. Research In Motion still has BlackBerry Messenger, which is still the staple of that instant messenger-like texting service. Sure, there are alternatives, but BBM is still the most talked-about. It’s still the most trusted within the corporate world, and it’s something that RIM truly does have up their sleeve. It’s this service, connected with the security that RIM offers, that the corporate world still craves, and that the BlackBerry name still offers.

But obviously Apple and even Microsoft are encroaching on that territory, and fiercely. So how does RIM get it back? Honestly, there might not be any coming back for RIM. Not on their own. The company has tried so hard to find this sweet spot between the corporate world and the general consumer that they’ve lost their footing altogether. That’s why a “bail-out” of sorts, specifically from Microsoft seems almost essential. Microsoft’s presence in the market, and with Windows Phone stepping towards the corporate market on its own time, could give RIM the boost of life-fluid that they need.

RIM wants to still be around and there’s nothing wrong with that. Obviously, like we said above, there are still options. Those options exist because people want RIM to succeed. But, while RIM wants to do this on their own, they might need a little help. But, the biggest thing is that RIM needs to be able to accept that help is essential, even if it’s not the “do it yourself” option.