Instant View: Fairfax-led consortium offers $4.7 billion for Blackberry

A consortium led by Fairfax Financial has offered to buy Blackberry Ltd for $4.7 billion, tossing the struggling Canadian smartphone maker a lifeline as it continues to bleed market share.

Commentary:

COLIN GILLIS, ANALYST, BGC PARTNERS

"This is a take-under but at least they got one bid.

"This is a company that needs to go private if they have any chance. They'd be able to restructure outside of the public eye, take a long term view, and run the company at break even.

"It's better than being broken up into pieces.

"But this is conditional on financing. This is not a done deal. Anybody who's bidding this up thinking there'll be a bidding war, that may not materialize."

NEERAJ MONGA, ANALYST, VERITAS INVESTMENT RESEARCH

"What it means is that Blackberry shareholders should be happy, they should sell and take their money.

"In the short term, the Fairfax offer saves Blackberry the embarrassment of a public market flogging. The longer term, we'll have to see what happens."

(Reporting by Solarina Ho and Leah Schnurr in Toronto, Malathi Nayak in; San Francisco, and Sinead Carew in New York)