Carphone makes bid for Tiscali

The Carphone Warehouse has made a bid to buy out ISP Tiscali, hoping to add it to TalkTalk and AOL in its broadband portfolio.

The bid of £550m is reportedly only for Tiscali's UK operations, as The Carphone Warehouse isn't interested in taking over the ISP's Italian services.

There have been rumours that The Carphone Warehouse would make a bid for Tiscali circulating since early April, though other potential buyers linked to a deal included BT.

Tiscali had said that it was looking to find a buyer and other bids have been made for the company.

Tiscali has two million broadband customers in the UK, and if it were to be added to TalkTalk and AOL it would mean The Carphone Warehouse was the biggest broadband provider in the UK.

However, Tiscali is also a good fit with the TalkTalk brand as both ISPs have been active in local loop unbundling (LLU), meaning that they don't rely on BT's network to provide broadband and telephony services.

US company Best Buy recently announced that it is investing £1.1bn in The Carphone Warehouse.

www.carphonewarehouse.com
www.talktalk.co.uk
www.tiscali.co.uk