5 ms·

Why don't public companies ever just give up and cash out the stockholders? It can't imagine what it must feel like to go to work at Blackberry every day just

by aianus 11y ago

Why don't public companies ever just give up and cash out the stockholders? It can't imagine what it must feel like to go to work at Blackberry every day just so you can destroy a little more value :/

cromulent 11y ago
Why would you "give up" on yearly sales of over 10B and profit over 13%? Seems like a good business to me.
xorcist 11y ago
Give up? Because you got one competitor from China? Why don't Cisco just "give up"?
- darkr 11y ago
  Because they're doing nearly $10B/year in profit on $50B in revenue?
tajano 11y ago
I began working at Nokia after they sold the phone business. It's not a place where people were just clocking in and out; there ws a strong effort and opportunity (born of necessity) to innovate. It was exciting. I suppose there are a limited number of examples of big companies with declining market share that successfully turn the ship around, but a few notable examples come to mind. Shareholders can always sell if they don't want to go along for the ride.
hkmurakami 11y ago
This is (was?) the largest company in Finland. It employs tens of thousands of people and directly factors into the country's well being. You can't just shut it down in a snap. (sort of like how you can't just sell Blackberry to anyone due to national security reasons)
- fulafel 11y ago
  This is long past. In the height of the dotcom bubble in 2000 they contributed ~4% to Finland's GDP, but aren't currently very significant. See http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/04/finland-and-nokia http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/04/finland-and-n... They do still seem to employ 5000+ in Finland according to their website. And probably left quite some cash in Finland in the company's hey day when global investors got into the stock.
PMan74 11y ago
I think Nokia have reinvented themselves a few times (they started out in rubber, right?). If they's opted just to pack it in they would not have become the giant they did. In addition I'd assume the major shareholders in Nokia & BB have had sight of and a say in the plans to try turn things around. And they think that it's a better bet than simply turning off the lights and distributing whatever cash those companies have on hand.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  They actually started out as a wood pulp mill (powered by rapids at a river called Nokia) in 1868. This expanded to a paper factory in 1880 and a cellulose factory in 1885 and later on a rubber factory, and then a cable factory, and the telecoms came up as a spin-off of cable manufacturing (starting with modems). The pulp mill site looks like this today: http://tinyurl.com/nokianvirta http://tinyurl.com/nokianvirta I worked in a Nokia R&D house that was built in Espoo in 1975; it had been constructed with a 10 tons per square meter load rating in three floors so that "if this silly electronics thing doesn't take off, we can always bring in the cable machines." The name Nokia comes from the name of the river, which in turn supposedly comes from a reference to "noki" (soot) as it is a pre-historic trading site of black skins of fur.
- dagw 11y ago
  they started out in rubber, right? They stated in wood pulp. Rubber came some 30 years later.

by aianus 11y ago

cromulent 11y ago

Why would you "give up" on yearly sales of over 10B and profit over 13%? Seems like a good business to me.

xorcist 11y ago

Give up? Because you got one competitor from China? Why don't Cisco just "give up"?

darkr 11y ago
Because they're doing nearly $10B/year in profit on $50B in revenue?

tajano 11y ago

I began working at Nokia after they sold the phone business. It's not a place where people were just clocking in and out; there ws a strong effort and opportunity (born of necessity) to innovate. It was exciting. I suppose there are a limited number of examples of big companies with declining market share that successfully turn the ship around, but a few notable examples come to mind. Shareholders can always sell if they don't want to go along for the ride.

hkmurakami 11y ago

This is (was?) the largest company in Finland. It employs tens of thousands of people and directly factors into the country's well being. You can't just shut it down in a snap. (sort of like how you can't just sell Blackberry to anyone due to national security reasons)

fulafel 11y ago
This is long past. In the height of the dotcom bubble in 2000 they contributed ~4% to Finland's GDP, but aren't currently very significant. See http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/04/finland-and-nokia http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/04/finland-and-n... They do still seem to employ 5000+ in Finland according to their website. And probably left quite some cash in Finland in the company's hey day when global investors got into the stock.

PMan74 11y ago

I think Nokia have reinvented themselves a few times (they started out in rubber, right?). If they's opted just to pack it in they would not have become the giant they did. In addition I'd assume the major shareholders in Nokia & BB have had sight of and a say in the plans to try turn things around. And they think that it's a better bet than simply turning off the lights and distributing whatever cash those companies have on hand.

ptaipale 11y ago
They actually started out as a wood pulp mill (powered by rapids at a river called Nokia) in 1868. This expanded to a paper factory in 1880 and a cellulose factory in 1885 and later on a rubber factory, and then a cable factory, and the telecoms came up as a spin-off of cable manufacturing (starting with modems). The pulp mill site looks like this today: http://tinyurl.com/nokianvirta http://tinyurl.com/nokianvirta I worked in a Nokia R&D house that was built in Espoo in 1975; it had been constructed with a 10 tons per square meter load rating in three floors so that "if this silly electronics thing doesn't take off, we can always bring in the cable machines." The name Nokia comes from the name of the river, which in turn supposedly comes from a reference to "noki" (soot) as it is a pre-historic trading site of black skins of fur.
dagw 11y ago
they started out in rubber, right? They stated in wood pulp. Rubber came some 30 years later.