Tiscali UK Sale: Carphone Bid is GBP250 Million

An informal offer of GBP 250 million has been extended by Carphone Warehouse for Italian telecoms company Tiscali's UK assets, which is less than half its last year's bid of GBP 550 million that was rejected by Tiscali then. Tiscali's assets in the UK has been steadily declining in value, as an initial GBP1.3 billion valuation got whittled in quick time owing to the a fast deteriorating economy, compounded by a substantial loss in its 1.8 million customer base in the UK and fast declining share value.

The Financial Times of the UK has reported that the successful materialisation of such an agreement, which is very much likely to be announced this week, can vault the status of Carphone Warehouse to the second largest supplier of broadband  in UK, overtaking Virgin Media. However, for the time being Carphone has declined any comment on the offer, as Tiscali said that they were still discussing their UK assets disposal.

Tiscali has been contemplating the sale of its assets in the UK since last year. After its rejecting in May 2008, a GBP 550 million offer from Carphone Warehouse, it had nearly struck a deal with BskyB for a GBP 450 million offer in December, although the latter showed its back on the Italy based ISP in April 2009. A few more telecoms companies such as BT, Vodafone, Wind and Swisscom have also had an eye on the company's assets in the UK.

At present Tiscali is whilting under the pressure from a debt pile of Euro 600 million, apart from reporting a net loss of Euro 243 million in the year 2008.

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