As with its phones, BlackBerry can barely give itself away.
Today, the one-time Canadian mobile pioneer officially acknowledged that its previously announced deal to sell itself for less than $5 billion has fallen through.
Instead, Fairfax Financial Holdings, the company that had agreed to the purchase, will lead a $1 billion investment that will allow BlackBerry to limp toward a final dissolution -- or a highly improbably turnaround.
The latter possibility seems no more likely now than over the past few years, as BlackBerry's market share plummeted under corporate dysfunction and malaise. One glimmer of hope, as Dealbook points out, is the replacement of departing CEO Thorsten Heins with John Chen, former chief of enterprise software maker Sybase, which he managed to pull out of a death spiral.
But Chen's success will have to be dramatic for Fairfax to recoup its investment. The news of the failed deal sent BlackBerry shares on the NASDAQ crashing 17 percent this morning to below $6.50. Under the terms of its agreement, investors won't make money converting BlackBerry's debt into stock until the share price tops $10.
Another possibility is that BlackBerry does manage to find another interested buyer. With the latest plunge, its market cap stands at around $3.3 billion. Cerberus Capital Management and Facebook are among the deep-pocketed entities reported to have at least entertained the possibility of some kind of deal with BlackBerry. And it's not crazy to imagine that either could figure out how to harvest at least that much value from BlackBerry's remains. (Facebook plus BBM, anyone?)
Still, the BlackBerry brand alone has become toxic at this point, a synonym for spectacularly failing to seize the moment. BlackBerry could have owned mobile, now nobody wants to own BlackBerry. If a big-name buyer does come through, it's hard to imagine it would want to advertise the fact.
