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Story URL: http://networks.silicon.com/telecoms/0,39024659,39152400,00.htm

Carphone Warehouse to join £350m Onetel bid war
Be mad not to, apparently

By Jo Best

Published: Monday 19 September 2005

Carphone Warehouse is to be among the bidders for Centrica's phone unit, Onetel.

Centrica, the company which owns British Gas as well as Onetel, announced the offloading of its phone unit last week and has appointed UBS to oversee the sale.

According to Centrica, Onetel no longer fits into its business portfolio. In its full year results, the company recently said: "Although the ability to offer a telecoms solution to our customers remains important, as part of focusing our capital and resources on energy and related home services we have now commenced the process to dispose of the Onetel business."

Reports put the buying price of Onetel at between £350m and £400m, with a number of high profile companies including France Telecom reputed to be interested in bidding.

Carphone Warehouse is also thought to be interested in the sale of the phone company. Carphone Warehouse CEO Charles Dunstone told City AM he would be mad not to consider putting in a bid.

He said: "It is very close to us as a business. Of course we will have a look." A Carphone Warehouse spokeswoman declined to comment further when contacted by silicon.com.

Should Dunstone acquire the Centrica-owned business he would be picking up an operation with a customer base of around 1.5 million and a turnover of £162m in the six months to June 2005.

Carphone Warehouse already runs its own landline operator, TalkTalk, which has around 990,000 customers and earlier this year invested in a sophisticated billing platform.