Internet company stays tight-lipped on collapse of £175m deal
Lancashire firm Daisy has remained tight-lipped over the collapse of a £175m deal.
Shares in TalkTalk tumbled on Friday after it was revealed that the multi-million deal between the two firms has collapsed.
Daisy had agreed to buy TalkTalk’s business to business operation in May but it has since emerged that the acquisition has been called off.
TalkTalk released a statement on Friday but so far there has been no comment from the Nelson firm on the issue.
The statement read: “TalkTalk and The Daisy Group have jointly agreed not to proceed with the proposed sale of TalkTalk’s direct B2B business, as announced on 24 May 2018.
“TalkTalk will continue to manage all direct B2B business, providing uninterrupted services for customers. FY19 EBITDA guidance remains at the originally stated 15% year-on-year growth (FY18 £233m).
“Daisy remains an important, long-term strategic partner for TalkTalk.”
The deal included around 80,000 of TalkTalk’s SoHo, SME and large enterprise clients and was originally due to complete later this month.
As part of the agreement TalkTalk’s clients would have continued to be served by their network, albeit with the customers themselves being under the ownership of Daisy.
The news saw TalkTalk’s share price take a tumble because the money would have helped to fund an ambitious £1.5bn project to deploy a new Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Home broadband network to three million properties.
Entrepreneur Sir Charles Dunstone this morning invested more than £500,000 in TalkTalk snapping up 529,621 shares.
Sir Charles is the co-founder and former chairman of mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse and the former chairman of electrical and telecommunications retailer and services company Dixons Carphone.
There has been no news on whether the collapse of the deal will affect Matthew Riley’s ambitious plans to take full control of the firm he founded,
The self-made millionaire wants to take full control of the business in deal worth £1.5bn.
Matthew Riley, who left school at 16 and founded the firm in 2001, is in advanced talks to buy out the company’s shareholders.
According to reports Mr Riley decided to pursue a buyout after rejecting a proposal from Bain Capital that valued Daisy at £1.6bn.
Toscafund and Oakley Capital own around half the shares in the business and a deal is thought to be imminent.
The TalkTalk deal was to form part of a broader package which includes a £1bn refinancing of the business.
Mr Riley is now one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the UK.
He built the Daisy Group through a string of acquisitions, including the £165m takeover of Alternative Networks.
He started out fixing fax machines and then moved into the recruitment sector.
The Daisy Group has more than 60,000 direct customers, including half of Britain’s high street retailers, and employs over 4,000 people.
