Carphone Warehouse Gets Approval To Buy Tiscali UK

The Carphone Warehouse has today been given approval by EU authorities to proceed with its £236 million takeover of broadband provider Tiscali UK.

The EU were looking to see if the acquisition would damage competition within the UK’s broadband sector.

However, it was found that while the Carphone Warehouse is set to become the UK’s largest broadband provider with over 4.25 million customers, it will still face hefty competition from company’s such as BT and Virgin Media – not too mention the UK’s mobile broadband providers.

An EU executive said, “The Commissions’ examination of the proposed transaction showed that none of the above markets would give rise to competition concerns.”

“The new entity will continue to face competition from a number of strong players, especially BT, as well as from a number of strong alternative operators, including those based on the cable platform”.

Tiscali still operates in Italy and other parts of the world and will use the proceeds of the sale to restructure its debt mountain.

The Carphone Warehouse will move Tiscali UK into its de-merged broadband business which includes TalkTalk Broadband and AOL Broadband.