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European Commission gives Carphone the nod to snap up Tiscali

Tuesday 30 June 2009 Comment

The European Commission has granted Carphone Warehouse's TalkTalk division clearance to buy up the troubled UK arm of the Italian communications provider Tiscali. This latest announcement sets everything in motion for the £236m takeover to go ahead and heralds the most significant step since the financial handshake was confirmed at the start of May.

The Commission granted the deal on the grounds the transaction “would not significantly impede effective competition" . It concluded the deal would be unlikely to have any negative effect on the UK broadband market.

Currently, Tiscali is the UK's fifth-largest internet service provider. However, once Carphone has integrated Tiscali into its TalkTalk Group the broadband subscriber charts will have to shuffle along to make way for the UK's largest residential broadband provider with a subscriber base of 4.25 million.

Speaking on the deal, the European Commission said the merged company would become one of the main competitors of communications giant BT. However, it also noted TalkTalk Group would sill face stiff competition from cable operators such as Virgin Media.

 

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