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Many of the kinds of partners Fairfax is hoping to entice to join its bid are skeptical of its chances of succeeding, although none wanted to be seen to be publicly dismissing the offer.

“I think this is a very difficult company to save,” said a turnaround specialist who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

At best, the industry players say Fairfax is out of the gate as a stalking horse offer intended to set a minimum price for BlackBerry in the hopes of kick-starting an auction by luring rival bids. Few believe it’s a done deal given that many of the main ingredients in a firm offer, namely the financing, have not been nailed down. In fact, during the six weeks BlackBerry intends to shop itself around, Fairfax will be closeted in the so-called data room, crunching BlackBerry’s numbers and using that information to entice folks like Bank of America Merrill Lynch and BMO Capital Markets to kick the tires, and eventually sign on to finance the takeover. Of course, Fairfax should already have a head start given that Mr. Watsa just resigned from BlackBerry’s board of directors in August to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“There are a lot of people saying that they might be interested under the right circumstances but that’s a tough sell right now,” said a private equity source familiar with BlackBerry. “I don’t think there will be very many people left standing there when they finish.”

Meanwhile, Fairfax has conceded there are no strategic partners or technology firms in its would-be consortium. Consider that Fairfax has no track record of creating corporate phoenixes out of the burning ashes of troubled companies. Rather, the re-insurance company has a reputation as a long-term investor, even though its own track record of late has been spotty — punctuated by large writeoffs on contrarian investments in the shares of Canwest Communications Inc., Torstar Corp. and Abitibi Bowater.