TalkTalk owners exploring options including £3bn sale

TalkTalk's Salford campus

Potential suitors including Sky and Vodafone are reportedly queuing up to buy TalkTalk.

Sky News has today reported that the owners of the broadband provider have received “tentative approaches about a possible £3bn sale of the company”.

It is understood that Lazard, the investment bank which has advised TalkTalk for a number of years, is exploring options after several groups, including Vodafone, approached the Salford-headquartered company.

Toscafund, which took the company private early last year, and TalkTalk founder and chairman Sir Charles Dunstone, both believed the company was now valued at more than £3bn.

The company was yet to receive a formal offer, however.

It was originally a brand of Carphone Warehouse – founded by Dunstone – before being demerged in 2010 following the acquisition of internet provider Tiscali UK in 2009.

In its latest annual report, TalkTalk’s revenue declined to £1.4bn from £1.6bn, although it blamed a shorter 11-month reporting period in 2021 and Covid-19 impacts for that.

Its customer numbers also slid to four million, from 4.3 million in 2019.

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