Fairfax Buys 14 Million Shares of RIM, Doubles Stake to 5%

Canadian company Fairfax Financial Holdings has bet the bank on Thorsten Heins and BlackBerry 10, doubling its stake in Research In Motion. Prem Watsa, who runs Fairfax, has also joined the board of the ailing Waterloo company.

Fairfax now owns nearly 27 million shares of RIM, well above the 12 million it owned in September, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Toronto company bought 6.5 million shares on January 25 and another 7.6 million shares yesterday.

This places the holding company's stake of RIM at more than 5%. At today's share price, that's a value of well over $400 million. RIM is currently worth about $8.5 billion. However, Fairfax isn't the largest shareholder in RIM—that title belongs to Primecap Management.