Recently after the company’s largest shareholer, Fairfax Financial Holdings abandoned the proposal of taking over Blackberry, the company decided to make a brave decision. Hire another CEO. Thorsten Heins agreed to step down and was replaced by John Chen the former Sybase Inc. CEO. Another change in the company is that Fairfax has also announced that it will raise $1-billion for the company, “with convertible debentures” (Globe and Mail, 2013). Furthermore, Manulife Financial Corp.’s has also recently joined Fairfax and other investment firms to purchase $70-million of Blackberry’s debt.

This is supposed to assist Blackberry to run their finance operations. It is a good decision for the company since this financial arrangement has been carefully tailored to fit Blackberry’s situation.   This distressed debt investing also makes the investing firms major creditors of the company and gives them power during any of the reorganization or liquidation of the company. This was seen when the company shook up its management completely. Things might finally start to look up for Blackberry, only time will tell.

Sources:
1.) Marlow, Iain. “Manulife buys into Blackberry financing deal.” The Globe and Mail. 8 Nov. 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/manulife-buys-into-blackberry-financing-deal/article15355818/>

2.) Silcoff Sean. “Interim CEO Chen takes the reins at Blackberry.” The Globe and Mail. 13 Nov. 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/interim-ceo-chen-takes-the-reins-at-blackberry/article15421758/>