BlackBerry and John Chen Agree to Contract Extension
March 15 2018 - 8:30AM
BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) (TSX:BB) and its Executive Chairman
and CEO, John Chen, today announced an agreement to extend Mr.
Chen’s leadership of BlackBerry through November 2023. Mr.
Chen joined BlackBerry in November 2013 and is responsible for
defining the company’s vision and goals, setting its strategy, and
ensuring its execution.
“The BlackBerry Board of Directors has tremendous confidence in
John Chen. John engineered a successful turnaround and has
the company repositioned to apply its strengths and assets to the
Enterprise of Things, an emerging category with massive potential,”
said Prem Watsa, Lead Director and Chair of the Compensation,
Nomination and Governance Committee of the BlackBerry Board.
“John’s leadership is critical and the Board has determined that it
is in the best of interests of BlackBerry and its shareholders to
continue his service through November 2023.”
Since becoming CEO, Mr. Chen has led BlackBerry through an
historic turnaround that has seen the iconic company shed its
hardware manufacturing business, return to financial stability, and
make strategic investments in cybersecurity and embedded software
that today are delivering the vast majority of the company’s
revenue and growth.
The five-year contract extension for Mr. Chen is weighted toward
long-term performance-based equity and cash awards, in addition to
a time-based equity award. There will be no change to Mr.
Chen’s base salary, short-term cash incentive, or benefits.
The time-based equity award consists of five million restricted
share units (RSUs) that will vest annually over five years in equal
tranches beginning on November 3, 2019. The performance-based
equity award consists of five million RSUs that will vest in five
equal tranches if and when the market price of BlackBerry’s shares
rises to reach whole dollar amounts from USD $16 to $20. The
performance-based cash award will vest and become payable if the
market price of BlackBerry’s shares reaches USD $30. The
stock price targets for the performance-based equity and cash
awards must be achieved over a 10-day trading average. For
all the performance-based awards to vest, the market capitalization
of BlackBerry would have to reach approximately $16.1 billion,
representing an increase of about 134% above BlackBerry’s market
capitalization as of the close of trading on March 14, 2018.
Complete details will be provided in BlackBerry’s Management
Information Circular, which will be filed and made public in May
2018 in connection with the company’s June 2018 Annual General
Meeting of
shareholders.
About BlackBerryBlackBerry is a cybersecurity
software and services company dedicated to securing the Enterprise
of Things. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company was founded in
1984 and operates in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle
East, Latin America and Africa. The Company trades under the ticker
symbols "BB" on the Toronto Stock Exchange and "BB" on the New York
Stock Exchange. For more information, visit www.BlackBerry.com.
Media Contacts:BlackBerry (519)
597-7273mediarelations@BlackBerry.com
Investor Contact:BlackBerry Investor
Relations(519) 888-7465investor_relations@BlackBerry.com
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