BlackBerry receives much-needed buyout offer of $4.7B

Despite being the desperate girl on the dance floor, it looks like BlackBerry has found a suitor.

Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited sent BlackBerry a letter of intent today, published by Business Insider. The letter says Fairfax would pay $9 a share, acquiring the company for $4.7 billion. It will pay out all of the existing stock holders in cash and take on all of the remaining shares for itself. It currently owns 10 percent of BlackBerry’s common shares.

Earlier today, the company’s stock were sitting at $8.23 a share, down a little over 5 percent since opening. On this news, however, the stock took a sharp upswing and is now approaching the $9 mark.

BlackBerry recently admitted that it will release losses of over $950 million in its upcoming earnings call. On top of that, the company will let go of around 4,500 employees in order to get its bottom line under control.

The letter goes on to say that the terms have been preapproved by BlackBerry’s board. One of these terms is that Fairfax will take BlackBerry private after a period of due diligence is completed by Nov. 4 this year.

There were reports over the weekend that BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis was talking with private equity firms, courting a bid for the beleaguered company. Of course, even if due diligence goes through and Fairfax is still interested in BlackBerry, the deal is subject to further approvals, including regulatory ones.

BBRY data by YCharts