The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that shares of BlackBerry jumped Friday after Bloomberg reported that New York private equity firm Veritas Capital is considering a bid for the Canadian company. The Globe's Sean Silcoff writes that the stock closed at $5.23 (U.S.), up 18.1 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange, after the story was published early Friday, although Bloomberg did not identify its source and characterized the state of talks as early. BlackBerry, which has struggled to regain investor interest since the demise of its smart-phone business, announced in May it was exploring a potential breakup of the company. The company hired investment banks Morgan Stanley and Perella Weinberg as financial advisers for the strategic review, but did not set a timetable for completing the process. This is a pivotal year for the company: It sold most of its legacy smart-phone-related patents, which had generated hundreds of millions of dollars in high-margin revenue in recent years through licensing deals with other companies. This fall, chief executive officer John Chen comes to the end of his second five-year employment contract and BlackBerry faces repayment of $365-million (U.S.) of debentures.