The exterior of one of the Research In Motion Limited buildings is shown in Waterloo, July 10, 2012.Mike Cassese/Reuters
Research In Motion Ltd. has confirmed it sold one of its private jets to a third party as part of the drive at the struggling BlackBerry maker to cut roughly $1-billion in operating costs by the end of the fiscal year.
In a statement, the company said: "We're looking at options with both our aircraft costs and finding ways to reduce our travel while still making sure we keep in close contact with our partners around the world."
RIM, which is seeing declining sales and revenues, is in the middle of laying off 5,000 of its employees around the world, in addition to 2,000 it let go last summer. The Waterloo, Ont.-based company is trying to slim down and become leaner and more efficient as it prepares to launch a new smartphone platform called BlackBerry 10, which was recently delayed until early in 2013.