The moment that Good Technology sold to BlackBerry the previous year for the bargain-bin sum of $425 million, everyone knew that something had gone terribly wrong for the one-time unicorn.
However, thanks to a little sleuthing by financial blogger Tom Prieto, we know just how bad things were at the end. And with several predicting a bloodbath for unicorns this year, that roaming herd of companies with $1 billion valuations would do well to note just how fast the collapse can happen.
In this case, just a year after reaching unicorn status and filing for a potential IPO, Good was on its last gasp of breath before one-time rival BlackBerry scooped it up.
BlackBerry announced the surprising acquisition on Sept. 4, 2015. In securities filings, Prieto learned that four days afterwards, BlackBerry made a bridge loan to Good for $20 million just so the latter could keep the lights on and pay the bills while it waited for the deal to close.
It was desperate times, for sure.
What’s more, Good had $89 million in debt at the time. So after receiving the $425, it had to pay the debt and then give another $267 million to preferred shareholders. That left $61 million for common shareholders (including any vested employees).
The result was that several employees got little or nothing. That prompted one previous insider to offer to give any profits he made from the stock to other employees who were left with nada.
In all, a painful, near-deadly fall. And as we noted, it may be just a hint of how painful the techpocalypse could be this year.
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