Blackberry shares plunge after sell-off plan is abandoned

Shares in struggling smartphone maker Blackberry have fallen 16% after it announced it had abandoned a plan to sell itself to its biggest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings.

Instead, it intends to raise $1bn (£627m) in fresh financing.

Chief executive Thorsten Heins will step down and former Sybase chief executive John Chen will serve as interim chief executive.
Last month, Blackberry reported a second-quarter net loss of $965 million.
Those losses were blamed on poor sales of its new smartphone, the Z10.
Fairfax was planning to lead a consortium of firms in a takeover of Blackberry worth $4.7 billion. But that plan, announced last month, has fallen through.
Last week, Reuters reported that Fairfax was struggling to raise the financing needed for the deal.
Instead, Fairfax, which owns a 10% stake in Blackberry, is contributing $250 million to the new fund-raising.
In September, the company announced a plan to cut 4,500 jobs, or 40% of its workforce, to reverse giant losses.