Vodafone + Tiscali Acquisition?

Vodafone + Tiscali Acquisition? According to Guardian, Tiscali, the telephone and internet service provider operating in Britain and Italy will be in race to be acquired. Vodafone is interested in the Anglo-Italian ISP Tiscali and it's reported that Tiscali's board prefers selling both its UK and Italian subsidiaries together rather than separately. In addition to Vodafone, a host of other companies are also interested in Tiscali — including BSkyB, Orange, Carphone Warehouse, Telecom Italia, Fastweb and Sky Italia — but most of them are believed to be interested in just one of the Tiscali subsidiaries, not both.

Following its acquisition of Italian ISP Tele2 last year, Vodafone undoubtedly confirmed its interest in the Italian fixed-line market. Likewise, the Big Red operator is also reportedly keen to expand its UK broadband business, which currently uses BT's network for access. Tiscali UK is Britain's fourth-largest broadband provider with around 1.8 million customers. A deadline for initial non-binding offers is set for May 5 2008.

Analysts have placed a price tag of £550m-650m on Tiscali's UK business but that is understood to be higher than many of the potential bidders would be willing to pay.