BlackBerry ousts CEO and halts $4.7bn sale

BlackBerry announced plans to sell itself in August, which was met with a $4.7 billion offer from investor Fairfax Financial.

The deal was provisionally accepted with a period of due diligence until November 4th, but followed by talks with Google and Facebook.

However, with the deadline now reached, the sale is off. Instead, BlackBerry says Fairfax and others will invest $1 billion into the struggling smartphone company and Fairfax will plough $250 million into the business.

Furthermore, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins has been dumped and former Sybase boss John Chen has been appointed executive chair of BlackBerry’s board of directors to drive the strategic direction and relationships of the company and act as interim CEO.

Our sister-site Mobile Entertainment has the full story.