One of Canada’s savviest investors is buying tons of RIM shares

Though many now doubt Research in Motion can survive, billionaire Prem Watsa’s Toronto-based insurance and investment firm continues to buy up stock. Fairfax Financial Holdings has bought 25 million shares in the last month, bringing its stake in RIM up to nearly 10 per cent and making it the tech giant’s single largest known shareholder. Sound familiar? Back in January, when Watsa first became a RIM board member, he doubled his and Fairfax’s shares to a 5.12 per cent stake. Watsa, whom the Globe and Mail calls “a contrarian investor by nature,” said Fairfax isn’t buying up stock because they believe a takeover is imminent; rather, he has confidence in the firm’s management and the potential of the BlackBerry 10. The man is no dummy—he has been dubbed the “Warren Buffet of the North”—so this move may make some reconsider whether RIM really is dead. [Globe and Mail]