No, BlackBerry hasn’t been bought by Lenovo, but its stock price is up anyway

If you were casually hanging out on Google Finance late yesterday investigating how BlackBerry’s stock is doing, you may have spotted something strange — the share price suddenly headed skyward. Why? Well, it’s all thanks to some rumours.

According to Bloomberg, the Canadian smartphone manufacturer is reportedly an acquisition target for tech giant Lenovo, whose CEO vaguely mentioned something about a deal with BlackBerry that could potentially work in the distant future. Yang Yuanqing told French newspaper Les Echos that an acquisition “could possibly make sense, but first I need to analyse the market and understand what exactly the importance of this company is.”

This comes just weeks after rumours were swirling about the potential acquisition after Lenovo’s CFO Wong Waiming said the company was looking at all strategic opportunities, including BlackBerry. The Lenovo team later issued a statement saying that Waiming was speaking broadly, and that the company was always interested in looking out for potential deals that could benefit shareholders — whether or not they involved BlackBerry.

BlackBerry’s shares hit their highest price (US$14.90) in almost a month in the wake of the CEO’s latest statements, despite the fact that the company has said before that it is focused on pushing BlackBerry 10, as well as offering general pacifying statements about how it’s open to strategic partnerships. CEO Thorsten Heins has previously said that his company could be willing to license its software to other manufacturers if they can prove that BlackBerry 10 has been successful and well-received.