A consortium led by the Canadian financial holding company Fairfax Financial has offered $4.7 billion to buy BlackBerry Limited, the producer of the famous mobile phones. The company has signed a letter of intent with this consortium, so the contract is not yet closed but it’s its intention to proceed with the sale.

About a month ago, BlackBerry officially admitted the possibility to put itself on sale. A few days ago, confirming its crisis, the company released the first estimates of the financial data for the second quarter of fiscal year 2014 which included nearly a billion dollars of losses. It also announced the layoff of 4,500 employees, about 40% of its workforce, a restructuring that now seems more than ever made ​​to close the deal.

Fairfax already owns 10% of BlackBerry shares and the offer means that the other shares will be bought for $9 per share. BlackBerry’s Board of Directors approved the letter of intent on the recommendation of a special committee. Now the consortium has six weeks to conclude the acquisition and during this period it’s possible for BlackBerry to open negotiations with potential alternative buyers.

In essence, a will was expressed by BlackBerry and the consortium led by Fairfax to close the deal in six weeks but there may still be surprises. The rumors about Fairfax interest had been around for several days but other companies were also named. Sure, they were just rumors and BlackBerry’s crisis isn’t an encouragement to spend billions of dollars.

No official statements came from BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins (photo courtesy of BlackBerry Limited. Unauthorized use is not permitted). If the sale to the consortium is successful, Fairfax CEO Prem Watsa might want to replace Heins. There may be other arrangements that now we don’t know so right now Heins’ fate isn’t clear.

Although the deal with Fairfax and its partners weren’t to be closed, BlackBerry would be sold anyway because at this point there can only be some doubt as to who will be the buyer. The new owners won’t have an easy task because they need to stop a crisis that seems to have become irreversible to return BlackBerry among the leaders in the field of smartphones.

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