Posted: 17th Aug, 2006 By: MarkJ
Both The Carphone Warehouse and NTL have today become the focus of new buyout speculation. Reports suggest that private equity firms have been eyeing both of them:
According to a report in The Times, NTL is in the cross-hairs of an unnamed private equity outfit willing to pay £10bn for the ISP, which merged with rival Telewest earlier this year.
NTL was approached in a separate offer by a pair of private equity firms late last year but their overtures were rejected. The ISP said at the time the approach had undervalued the company, angering some shareholders.
Carphone Warehouse declined to comment on the rumoured private equity offer led by Archie Norman, ex-Asda chairman and now at , who had previously attempted to buy rival mobile retailer Phones4U.Fresh from its merger with
Telewest, any purchase of NTL at this time would be mind bogglingly complex to say the least.
Similar Carphone, which is heavily involved in the throws of bidding for AOL UK, has its own difficulties (many have signed up, but lots are still without broadband) to overcome and such interest could easily complicate matters. More @
ZDNet.