Currys Investor Urges Sale of UK Mobile Operator ID Mobile
Low-cost mobile operator iD Mobile (Currys), which harnesses Three UK’s national 4G and 5G network via a virtual operator (MVNO) partnership, could be sold. The news came after one of Currys’ top investors, JO Hambro, encouraged the consume electronics retailer to sell the operator (valued at c.£350m) to help resolve its current difficulties.
Over the past few months Currys has faced two failed takeover bids for its wider business. The most recent one occurred after US investor, Elliott, abandoned an attempt to take Currys private after its second offer, which valued the retailer at £757m, was rebuffed. Meanwhile JD.com, a Chinese retailer, promptly also gave up on bidding for the company.
According to The Times (paywall), JO Hambro, which holds a 4.5% stake in Currys and is the company’s 8th largest shareholder, now wants the retailer to consider selling iD Mobile in order to better “realise shareholder value” following the withdrawal of recent bids.
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The letter suggested that one factor contributing to the failed bids was the stance of certain investors on the “minimum acceptable value for [iD Mobile’s] business“. Selling the operator might help to resolve that, but it remains unclear whether Currys itself will pursue such an option (JO Hambro is believed to have support from at least some other big investors in the business).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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It shows the low value of retail these days if ID mobile is worth 350 million and the total company is onlyabout 750MM.
Anyone know how many customers ID have?
There are two clues in the article. One is a picture the other is a Note.
I wonder how Currys stay in business at all. They never have any stock so you have to order it in, bit pointless having a bricks and mortar shop if you can’t pick stuff off the shelf, you might as well go straight to Amazon or AO.
It’s not uncommon from my retail experience (not Currys) to see people willing to wait for stuff, depends on the individual and their circumstances though.
In some cases, people simply don’t want to use online services, even if it is to their detriment.
One merit is the fact that you can go into the shop and actually see/try the product you’re interested in.
I noticed that the last time I went.
I went to get a new TV because the old one broke out of the blue.
Saw the one I wanted, but they said it’ll be 5 days for delivery. So I went to Amazon which was the same price but delivery was in 2 days.
I guess its nice to see certain products, but for TV/AV you can get decent information online from ratings sites like rtings.
@No Name
You’d be surprised how people can get certain things wrong though, for example, the size of a TV.
And I’m not talking just ‘I bought a 43″ when I should have bought a 50″‘, I’m talking confusing the diagonal size with the width.
Sometimes it’s also nice to see a screen IRL given how much they can differ in terms of quality and personal preferences may play a part. I also would have liked to try different AVRs before buying mine but there was nowhere nearby, of course I checked various reviews/sites before buying.
I lived in one place that has a regional electronics chain and now live in another with a different regional chain.
I’d say there’s still a place for quality retail. The first of the above chains is the antithesis of anything Currys does. Good prices, good service, very good chance they had it in stock and you could take it away immediately or get a free delivery that day. No hard sell on warranties – often they’d promote the manufacturer’s free extended warranty.
They also had agreements to handle warranty repairs for most of the brands they sold, so (for those things worth repairing) that got sorted quickly too rather than shipping it hundreds of miles away.
Less experience with the second but it is much the same. Needed a washing machine urgently, picked out the one I wanted, had it in the van in less than 10 minutes.
1.5m customers and valued at £350m? That’s about £233 per customer. Is that overpriced or am I getting my maths wrong?
Massively overpriced.
I pay £7 a month, and I only do that because they’re the only MNVO that I could find where WiFi calling worked straight out of the box.
It depends on how much the average subscription is worth, and how long the average subscriber stays with the company before switching. The higher the better for those two metrics. This is information that the potential buyers will be privy too, and it might be safe to assume that they would not want to overpay for the business.
If you follow the rule of thumb of 3x profit then they only need to make £6.50 per customer per month to justify that valuation which doesn’t seem unreasonable. Of course there are many other factors which can raise or lower the valuation.
There’s more to a company’s worth than just the customer revenue they bring in. You wouldn’t buy a company and expect to make that cost back within 1 year, more like 3+ years so the valuation seems about right.
I get the rationale for selling iD but it would another bad move for the UK mobile industry. The indepedants ie cpw/p4u are long gone. The prices wholesale have went up as their is noone keeping the networks honest. Less competition means higher prices. Now voda and 3 are getting in bed together, another restrictive move
I got for my kids a zflip5 and iphone 15 collectively at half of the price of the established networks who were charging more for less data and 36 month contracts plus big upfronts. In both cases the total cost of ownership including airtime and device cost less than buying the phones sim free
Getting a phone and an airtime plan for less than the value of the phone? Link me to this charity website please.
Yeah they had 600£ phones for 23£ for 24 months with unlimited data mins and calls
So cheaper than buying phone outright plus unlimited everything.
That was pixel deal i got sadly used of for two weeks and but sim in my LGV60. At the time I needed a phone then found one better at a stealth with a larger battery and Quad DAC and heaphone jack which is rare yrs its older device but do prefer it.
‘JO Hambro, which holds a 4.5% stake in Currys and is the company’s 8th largest shareholder, now wants the retailer to consider selling iD Mobile in order to better “realise shareholder value”’
Asset stripping, then.
Exactly this they just want to strip and sell off
No thoughts given to consumers ID is a good cheep mobile operator
16 £ unlimited everything sim only plus roaming is a great deal.
AO seems a better retailer than Currys.
They have a store front that you have to have majority of stuff delivery only due to nothing ever being unstuck. Customer service directs you to online only majority of purchase are online only why have a store front this just makes small things more expensive to justify the cost of having a store. This is why others can sell for so much cheaper amazon especially its killed majority of highstreet retailers off yet pays so little UK taxes.
I have recently purchased a 650£ American style fridge freezer from Currys in a sale
Who cocked up delivery date not once twice or three times even though I paid more for my slot.
Including installation which was supposed to cover how to operate the setting on its digital screen setup the fridge installation of shelf’s ECT .they just removed some packaging that’s all.
I took the doors off so they wouldn’t hit anything on the way into the kitchen put cardboard around do it frames to reduces any possible damage
3 dates missed later and a very begrudging call to customer services
when finally arrived
They got it in plugged it and went by the way packaging was removed outside the house
I had to remove packaging from the glass shelves myself
Install them myself
Read the manual yadda yadda was always going to read it but was told this would be part of the 40£ extra
so much for their knowlage if products they sell they don’t tell you anything about what the setting do.
Then 20 mins later they came back for the dolly they left on the street outside my house after getting to the next home and realized they hadn’t got it
Due to how quickly they scampered out of here couldn’t get away fast enough.
Where as AO I purchased my
LG C1 OLED. They arrived on the time slot given delivery was spot on and much cheaper than elsewhere. Offer extra help and customer service rang me later to check how everything went.
Like customers service should be.
When AO Amazon and others just basically sell online only a retailers now store front to keep open straight from warehouse only cuts down on the cost of products so shifts more products
That’s why they are doing so well you start to think how’s Currys is going to survive against online retailers
Its basically killed out high streets other than charity shops
Pawn shops cash converters or pound stores its sad that its happening to the high street but when everything is rising is cost and waged don’t keep up people to for the cheapest option. If we didn’t have instant access to online sale like 30 years ago
Then we had only then high street option but you also had repair shops suppliers of spare parts and others to keep products going for longer dam we only had 3 TV channels years ago and most of that was a picture during the night or teletext.
Times are and fair ever will be changing if you cant adapt you go under. You also kept you tvs for longer hi era washing machine EC t and had them repaired now its just throw or give them away.