Carphone Warehouse expands TalkTalk with OneTel deal

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 19-Dec-05, 15:30

LONDON – Carphone Warehouse has agreed to buy OneTel from Centrica in a deal worth as much as £154.2m, depending on the number of customers Centrica recruits for Carphone Warehouse over the next three years.

At the same time, Carphone Warehouse has completed the acquisition of the UK and Irish operations of Danish fixed line company Tele2 for £8.5m.

Carphone Warehouse will boost customer numbers at its fixed line operation TalkTalk by rebranding OneTel and Tele2's operations as TalkTalk, supporting a drive into the broadband market in 2006.

It hopes to end up with 2.4m TalkTalk customers by adding 1.1m from OneTel and 188,000 from Tele2 to its current base of 1.1m.

Further customers will be recruited through Centrica's British Gas operation as part of the deal.

Centrica will be paid now £132m with £27m of that figure being conditional on Centrica recruiting a certain number of customers over the next three years.

In addition, if Centrica meets an undisclosed higher target, it stands to receive a further £22.2m making the total of £154.2m.

The OneTel transaction is set to complete on December 31.

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