Report says Samsung mulling BlackBerry buy, BlackBerry stock climbs, BlackBerry denies report

The biggest handset maker in the world, Samsung, is reportedly considering buying the long-troubled phone maker BlackBerry for as much as $7.5 billion.

Reuters said it spoke to a person familiar with the matter who believes the two companies discussed a deal last week, and that Samsung is mainly interested in BlackBerry’s patent portfolio.

The source said Samsung proposed an initial price range of $13.35 to $15.49 per share, representing a premium of 38 percent to 60 percent over BlackBerry’s current trading price, Reuters reports.

BlackBerry’s stock spiked upward 30 percent on the news.

But BlackBerry is denying the whole thing. “BlackBerry has not engaged in discussions with Samsung with respect to any possible offer to purchase BlackBerry,” the company said in a statement.

This, of course, doesn’t mean a deal isn’t in the works. It could be mutually beneficial: Samsung may see BlackBerry’s patent portfolio as fuel to gain back some mojo in its fight against Apple. And BlackBerry, despite getting a bit of its old mojo back under new CEO John Chen, is still far from out of the woods and has reason to welcome a graceful exit courtesy of Samsung.

Samsung’s offer would place a valuation of between $6 billion and $7.5 billion on BlackBerry.

The net here is that we either have a legitimate deal on the table, or we have one red-faced news organization and a bunch of happy BlackBerry stockholders today — the ones who are dumping the stock right now, anyway.