Motorola Mobility shares skyrocket

After Google Inc. said Monday it would buy Libertyville-based Motorola Mobility, MMI shares soared nearly 60 percent after the opening bell and stayed up all day.

Motorola Mobility closed at a stunning $38.12 — a 56 percent increase.

“You could look at Motorola’s history and never find a close price at 50 percent higher,” said Stephen Patel, an analyst with Gleacher & Co., in San Francisco.

Motorola Mobility spun off from Motorola Inc. in January in an effort to create more shareholder value and focus more on smartphones. It also started to disappoint Wall Street when it posted a second-quarter loss of about $56 million and had a grim outlook for its third quarter.

Still, Google found value in the company, namely its 17,000 patents, and the sale was celebrated on Wall Street on Monday, said Patel.

“Not many people could ever have anticipated that over decades of research and development that it would lead to this,” said Patel.

Motorola Mobility’s patents are valuable assets and are in the greatest hands at Google, he said.

“I take Google at face value when it said they’ll use those patents defensively and not offensively when dealing with its Android platform,” Patel said.