BlackBerry has called off its sale and removed its chief executive, Thorsten Heins, a news report said.
According to the Financial Times, a consortium of investors led by Fairfax Financial plans to invest an additional US$1 billion in the Canadian group instead of confirming a $4.7 billion takeover proposal it outlined six weeks ago. Fairfax, a financial holding company based in Toronto, is BlackBerry’s largest shareholder.
The decision not to sell sent BlackBerry shares crashing 20 percent to its lowest in a decade, the report said.
John Chen, a technology industry veteran, will take over as executive chairman and interim chief executive from Heins, it said.
As a result of the ascent of Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc., BlackBerry's global smartphone market share has nosedived to a single-digit figure.
