The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of UK broadband ISP and network business TalkTalk, James Smith, has revealed that the debt-laden group’s existing shareholders have “confirmed their intent to provide new funding of over £200m” to support the company’s “working capital and operational costs“.
The provider has already spent much of the past couple of years wrestling with its existing c.£1bn debt pile, which in 2023 culminated in a plan to demerge the group into three separate businesses (TalkTalk Consumer, TalkTalk Business Direct and the wholesale centric PlatformX Communications – here), while also cutting costs (e.g. marketing) and monetising some assets (e.g. selling IP addresses).
The demerger may also, in theory, make it easier to sell off individual parts of the business (selling the entire group proved tricky) and Virgin Media (VMO2) has previously been linked with a possible acquisition of their consumer broadband business (here), although nothing has come of that yet. The first piece to go was technically TT Business Direct, which ended up being sold to the company’s own shareholders for £95m after struggling to attract other fish (here).
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The latest development indicates that the group’s existing backers – Sir Charles Dunstone, Toscafund and Ares Management – will meet next week to confirm an injection of over £200m to help keep the business rolling. According to Sky News, separate discussions with Australian banking giant Macquarie about a larger investment into TalkTalk’s wholesale network business, PlatformX, are still being discussed.
Just for some context. In May 2024 we reported (here) that TalkTalk was attempting to raise £450m from the possible sale of a large stake in PlatformX to Macquarie which, if successful, would help to pay off some of the debt and avoid a default. Suffice to say that TalkTalk are still very much in the midst of trying to resolve their now legendary debt problems, with pressure from several looming repayment deadlines helping to concentrate minds.
James Smith, Group CFO, said:
“We anticipate agreement on new capital investment into the business in the near future, and discussions to achieve that are ongoing. Engagement continues with a potential new investor, together with potential new lenders.
At the same time, the group’s existing shareholders have confirmed their intent to provide new funding of over £200m into the group to support working capital and operational costs.
Those shareholders and the company are in dialogue with existing group lenders, or their advisers, regarding the optimal route to put that funding into the business.”
According to the report, a key meeting will be held on Tuesday next week that should help to hammer out the details, which if agreed may also be accompanied by an amend-and-extend agreement with the group’s lending banks.
As far as I can see Macquarie are little more than a bunch of asset strippers. This does not bode well for the future.
Too big to collapse.
I thought the same about Debenhams and Woolworths. Why buy TT when you can wait a few months and hoover up the customer base for next to nothing like octopus did with bulb
LOL, nothing is too big to collapse, bigger companies have gone belly up in the past.
This company has been in financial distress for years. It’s another example of where top execs are rewarded with knighthoods and damehoods ahead of company failures. 2 more execs to join Fred Goodwins illustrious club.
Let this old dog die already. Poor staff welfare: outsourcing, relocating and constant restructures make job security tough to keep.
The “add value” era where staff had to constantly push other services such as mobile and TV was driven from a desire to trap people by making it as a difficult as possible to leave by going down the all or nothing approach. Cancel your broadband and you’ll lose your mobile, too.
Then there’s the issue of the cyber attacks that happened over the years. Official staff memos basically advised staff to advise customers that they were partially responsible for being scammed. Sorry, but if someone has all the data on a customer such as the name of engineers, dates and times of visits, etc, it’s pretty hard for the public not to think the caller is anything but genuine.
Horrible, horrible company.
Is VM buying them yet? Someone needs to save TT
How was Neighbours? How did you find working with grumpy Harold?
No. We need to let some large communication providers fail to show that we won’t tolerate lacklustre management, poor decision making, and shoddy service.
It’s dying. Complete mismanagement by Charles Dunson, Dido Harding and Tristia Harrison over the past 10 years has pushed this company to the brink. They got rid of too many talented people from Tiscali that could have prevented the data breach.
Let it fail