Fairfax Financial is facing an uphill battle to find backers for its $4.7 billion preliminary takeover bid for BlackBerry, according to a number of media reports. The company has until 5pm today to come up with a bid.

A number of leading banks have decided not to finance the bid, according to separate reports in Bloomberg and Reuters.

Fairfax has been trying to attract support from backers since it signed a preliminary takeover agreement on 23 September.

If Fairfax fails to deliver then it leaves the door open to rival bidders. A potentially strong rival bid is emerging, following talks between Cerberus Capital Management; BlackBerry co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin; and Qualcomm.

Cerberus and the BlackBerry co-founders had previously considered solo bids.

Qualcomm’s interest has been piqued by the security technology owned by BlackBerry subsidiary Certicom, which is used by corporate and government clients, it is thought.

If Fairfax cannot pull together its bid by today then it has a number of options. It can ask for more time, take its offer off the table or return with different terms.

Today (4 November) is also the deadline for rival bids to come forward.

A plethora of tech firms have been linked with BlackBerry in recent weeks but firm interest has been more elusive. Those linked include Cisco, Facebook, Google, Lenovo, SAP and former Apple CEO John Sculley.

However, it is unclear how many will formally express their interest with a bid.