Troubled Canadian phonemaker BlackBerry would no longer sell the company. Instead it will raise $1 billion in fresh financing and at the same time replaced Chief Executive Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry announced on Monday.

It was under Mr Heins' leadership that BlackBerry came out with new smartphones that didn't sell, causing the company to write off almost $1 billion in inventory of unsold phones.

Mr Heins will be replaced temporarily by John Chen, the former chief executive of Sybase. When a permanent chief executive is found, Mr Chen will become the executive chair of the BlackBerry Board of Directors.

BBC said the Waterloo, Ontario-based company will raise the $1 billion in fresh financing, while Fairfax Financial, the largest shareholder, will contribute $250 million to the fund raising.

Other investors would raise the amount through convertible securities.

Under the original deal in September, Fairfax would buy the company at $9 a share or $4.7 billion. The deal expected to be completed within the next two weeks, according to a BlackBerry statement.

Other companies such as Lenovo has expressed interest in the company once known as Research in Motion, while there were reports that BlackBerry officials even flew to California to negotiate a sale with Facebook.

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