Blackberry can't sell its way out of jam
 

Troubled mobile phone seller Blackberry has worked out that it can't sell its way out of its jam.

The phone maker, formerly known as RIM, abandoned its plan to sell itself and said its CEO Thorsten Heins is stepping down.

On the back of the news, shares fell 16 percent as investors feared that the outfit was running out of ideas.

BlackBerry said it will abandon a sale and will raise $1 billion by issuing convertible notes to a group of long-term investors including its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings.

Fairfax was the only one who seriously wanted to buy the company, for $4.7 billion.

Analysts told Reuters that the company was back to its downward spiral. The company has $1 billion more cash that buys them time but the drumbeat of negativity is likely to continue.

BlackBerry named John Chen, credited with turning around Sybase Inc in the late 1990s, as its interim CEO and executive chairman. Sybase, an enterprise software company, was eventually acquired by SAP AG in 2010.

No one has explained why Heins had to go. Chen said that he has no interest in shutting BlackBerry's loss-making handset business and believed he could turn it around.

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