Business this week

After admitting in August that it was considering its options, BlackBerry announced that it had agreed to a $4.7 billion buy-out from a consortium headed by its biggest shareholder. (The deal is not final; the board may explore alternative bids.) The company’s announcement came after it reported a $960m write-down because of poor sales of its latest touchscreen phone. Once so addictive it was dubbed “CrackBerry”, BlackBerry’s share of the global smartphone market has fallen to less than 3%, from 11% in 2011. See article