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The heavily indebted TalkTalk Group has reportedly begun the process of hiring City advisers – with both Barclays or Morgan Stanley said to be in the frame – in order to oversee the possible breakup and sale of their consumer broadband arm of the same name, and their PXC wholesale division.
The provider, which in the last month or so has been in the news several times due to alleged disputes with suppliers over payments and fees (here and here), is reportedly said by Sky News to now be in the process of launching a Strategic Review of its business after separate “unsolicited approaches” were allegedly received for both parts of the group.
The group has certainly had a rough few years and in September 2024 secured a crucial refinancing package worth c. £400m (here and here), which saved it from the immediate risk of a default on its debts (extended debt maturities to September 2027). But it’s still in a difficult position and recently suffered another round of redundancies (here), as well as the continued shrinking of its customer base from 3.6 to 3.2 million customers over the past year (here).
On top of that, Openreach was recently said to have “threatened to block TalkTalk from putting new customers on its broadband network,” which we assume would only be enacted if the same problem with late payments were to continue in the future. Suffice to say that the group have long been attempting to sell off their remaining businesses, albeit so far without all that much success.
The latest development suggests that the provider, which declined to comment on the new report, might be close to finding a suitor for TalkTalk’s consumer broadband business and / or their PXC wholesale and networks division. But it remains unclear whether the recent approaches can be converted into a deal, or what form such an agreement might take.
Sky also suggested that TalkTalk was in talks to raise a further £100m from a combination of existing investors and asset sales. The latter of which could involve the sale of their remaining 3.2 million broadband customers, or at least some of them, to a new owner.