BlackBerry’s largest single shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings has made an offer to buy the company and take it private in a deal that values the smartphone manufacturer at just US$4.7 billion – a far cry from its peak in 2009 when the company was worth US$84 billion.

BlackBerry confirmed that it has signed a letter of intent agreement under which a consortium to be led by Fairfax has offered to acquire the company – subject to due diligence.

The BlackBerry directors are recommending the offer.

The consortium is offering US$9 per share to buy the company – a premium on the share price earlier today, but below the average of US$10.60 per share the company was trading at before it announced last week’s billion dollar loss and 4,500 redundancies.

At the end of the second quarter, BlackBerry had around US$2.6 billion in cash and equivalents in the bank – so the net cost to the buyers of the company comes in at just US$2.1 billion.

Fairfax, which owns approximately 10 per cent of BlackBerry’s shares, intends to contribute its stake into the transaction.

Prem Watsa, chairman and CEO of Fairfax, said: "We believe this transaction will open an exciting new private chapter for BlackBerry, its customers, carriers and employees. We can deliver immediate value to shareholders, while we continue the execution of a long-term strategy in a private company with a focus on delivering superior and secure enterprise solutions to BlackBerry customers around the world."

The due diligence on the company is expected to be completed in early November, and the company is free to seek out competing offers from other buyers. Considering the patent pool owned by the company, and its large BBM consumer base, other handset and service providers may be keen to launch a hostile counter bid.

Part of the deal by Nokia to sell its mobile phone business to Microsoft would also see it restricted in how it uses the Nokia brand name in the future.

As part of the deal, Nokia is granting Microsoft a 10-year licence to use the Nokia brand name "on current and subsequently developed Mobile Phones based on the Series 30 and Series 40 operating systems."

Nokia retains ownership of the brand name in a move that mirrors the deal IBM struck when it sold its computer division to China’s Lenovo in 2005, although Lenovo stopped using the IBM brand after just three years.

However, as part of the deal with Microsoft, Nokia will also be restricted from licensing the Nokia brand for use in connection with mobile device sales for 30 months and from using the Nokia brand on Nokia’s own mobile devices until December 31, 2015.

The transaction with Microsoft is expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year.

Huawei has pledged to diversify its service portfolio in Europe and is looking to hire around 5,500 additional staff in the region. It employs around 7,500 staff in Europe currently. The expansion comes as the company admits that it still faces problems gaining access to the US market.

The company has just opened an exhibition centre in the Netherlands to promote its services in Europe.

Patrick Zhang, president of marketing and solutions, Huawei Enterprise Business Group said that providing IT solutions to European enterprises is a new growth engine for the company in Europe. Huawei entered this business in 2011 and the turnover in the division is expected to reach US$1 billion in the next three to five years.

"Apart from research and development input, localisation is our key to success," Zhang said. The job creation being outlined is scaled to take place over the next five years.

The company still faces hurdles within Europe, but less on grounds of security than due to suspicions that the company receives state aid, particularly in the form of generous loans from state-controlled banks. These could spark import tariffs being applied to goods sold in Europe, although European vendors are more wary, fearing a backlash from the more lucrative Chinese market.

Bahrain’s telecom regulator, the TRA has announced that it has handed over LTE spectrum licences to the country’s three mobile network operators.

The TRA’s chairman handed the licences to Batelco, Zain and Viva at its headquarters.

The concession permits the use of LTE services over all three main frequency blocks currently used by the mobile networks, 900MHz; 1800MHz and 2.1GHz.

The regulator also confirmed that it has provided the necessary authorisations for Menatelecom to migrate its fixed-wireless service to LTE as well.

BlackBerry has issued a trading update and is warning that it expects to post a loss of around US$1 billion for the second financial quarter of the year.

The company is also confirming rumours of massive redundancies, and is cutting approximately 4,500 employees – which accounts for about 40 per cent of the workforce.

The firm also said that it would cut its product range from six smartphones to four, focusing on enterprise and professional consumer-centric devices, including two high-end devices and two entry-level devices.

Financially, the company expects to post a net operating loss of approximately US$950 million to US$995 million; loss includes a primarily non-cash, pre-tax inventory charge of approximately US$930 million to US$960 million resulting from the increasingly competitive business environment impacting BlackBerry smartphone volumes, and a pre-tax restructuring charge of US$72 million.

Thorsten Heins, president and CEO of BlackBerry said, "We are implementing the difficult, but necessary operational changes announced today to address our position in a maturing and more competitive industry, and to drive the company toward profitability. Going forward, we plan to refocus our offering on our end-to-end solution of hardware, software and services for enterprises and the productive, professional end user."

At the end of the second quarter, total cash, cash equivalents and investments is estimated to be approximately US$2.6 billion. The company has no debt.

The company currently expects to report revenue for the second quarter of approximately US$1.6 billion, of which approximately 50 per cent is expected to be service revenue.

For the second quarter, the company expects to recognise hardware revenue on approximately 3.7 million BlackBerry smartphones. Most of the units recognised are BlackBerry 7 devices, in part because certain BlackBerry 10 devices that were shipped in the quarter will not be recognised until those devices are sold through to end-customers. During the second quarter, approximately 5.9 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end-customers, which included shipments made prior to the second quarter and which reduced the company’s inventory in channel.