Pension funds in talks for BlackBerry assets

TORONTO — Two of Canada’s largest pension funds have held preliminary discussions with Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. about its bid for BlackBerry Ltd., yet are holding off from the effort because they only want pieces of the smartphone maker, two people familiar with the talks said.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and the Alberta Investment Management Corp., which together manage about $198 billion, are targeting BlackBerry’s secure server network and other business units, the people said.

The funds negotiating with Fairfax aren’t interested in backing a bid for the whole company and haven’t joined the bidding consortium yet, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

Fairfax, the largest shareholder of BlackBerry, announced Sept. 23 it was leading a group of investors planning a buyout of the money-losing smartphone maker.

That points to Canadian pension funds such as Ontario Teachers’ and AIMCo, as the Edmonton, Alberta-based fund is known, said Kevin Stadtler, president of Stadtler Capital Management LLC in Texas.

“There is a fairly big financing risk if the Canadian pension funds are not involved,” said Greg Taylor, a portfolio manager at Aurion Capital Management in Toronto that has about $7 billion in assets and doesn’t own BlackBerry.

“The problem is the core business has eroded so quickly that it’s hard to make a case this is a good stable business that would fit their liabilities.”