BSkyB to buy Tiscali

[SatDish]

Full details can be found at Sky To Buy Tiscali Broadband?
Surely it can only be good news for Tiscali customers?

[kmount]

One would hope so...

[jje]

According to The Grauniad, talks between BSkyB and Tiscali over the latter's UK operations being bought by the former have hit a snag over the asking price. It seems Tiscali wanted £600m, but Sky was only willing to stump up £450m.

There seem to be two key problems with Tiscali, according to the piece. One is the fact that Tiscali UK is haemorrhaging customers, and the other is its nature as a patchwork of the networks it had itself bought up (a not dissimilar situation to that of Virgin Media). Hence, integrating the billing systems and the physical networks themselves would be a nightmare for any prospective buyer.

So, it seems one of the longest-running speculation mills in the telecoms market these days is back to square one. I've asked for comment from both Tiscali and Sky, but neither has stumped up, unsurprisingly.
Arcticle posted here .
BSkyB/Tiscali deal reportedly falls through - Communication Breakdown - David Meyer's Blog at ZDNet.co.uk Community

jje

[SkyUser]

I am not convinced the deal is off, I would still be under the impression that it will go through, if it has not done so already. But then again I could be wrong.

[jje]

Following a period of due diligence in the past six weeks, sources said that BSkyB was not willing to pay anywhere close to the mooted £450m price tag, with the price it was offering closer to £350m.

Sources close to BSkyB, run by chief executive Jeremy Darroch, said last night that talks had ended and "the ball is now in the Italian's court".

Tiscali management are now understood to be in crucial talks to decide whether they will sell the business, although BSkyB sources are not expecting their latest offer to be accepted.

One would have to say that with a lot of post like that around in the last few hours its a dead deal unless Tiscali will sell at a knockdown price .

jje