Tiscali UK sales price to Carphone to be reduced due to Inaccurate figures

Following accusations that the customer base of the Italian broadband provider had been overstated, Carphone Warehouse has now reduced the original price of £236 million that it had agreed to pay for Tiscali UK.

Following these latest revelations the CEO of Carphone Warehouse, Charles Dunstone said “They effectively overstated the figures. When we looked in the cupboard there was less than we had been led to believe.”

When the sale had been agreed it was though that Tiscali UK had 1.4 million customers but in a recent trading statement the company was said to have had 160 000 fewer customers than it had advised when it was purchased back in May according to Carphone Warehouse.

According to the calculations of analysts the price for the company will now be dropped by around £25 million due to the reduced customer base as the broadband provider and mobile phone retailer had originally agreed to pay Tiscali UK’s Italian owner on a per-customer basis. Detailed figures of the new price were unavailable from Carphone Warehouse.

This latest issue is just one of many twists in the sales of what was once one the main broadband service providers in the UK. Tiscali had been one of the largest providers of broadband services and digital TV player in the UK just two years ago having a customer base of almost 10 million users. The company had also been buying up a number of rival broadband providers like Home Choice and Pipex.

With its Italian parent company struggling to pay of substantial debts, however, the UK-based company was put up for sale last year. Companies linked to the bid for the fifth largest broadband service provider in the UK included BSkyB, Vodafone, Carphone Warehouse and Orange, and its was expected that the sale of the company would raise as much as £600 million.

Source – Times Online