British supermarket giant Tesco has reportedly held discussions with bankers regarding a sale of its 50% stake in leading UK MVNO Tesco Mobile. Co-owner O2 is unlikely to bid, given its own pending sale to rival cellco Three.
Tesco’s share of the…
British supermarket giant Tesco has reportedly held discussions with bankers regarding a sale of its 50% stake in leading UK MVNO Tesco Mobile. Co-owner O2 is unlikely to bid, given its own pending sale to rival cellco Three.
Tesco’s share of the profits of the MVNO was about £100m last year, the Financial Times reported cited people with knowledge of Tesco’s operations. The virtual operator has four million customers.
Tesco declined to comment on the report.
Earlier this year, new CEO Dave Lewis said he was considering asset sales as part of his turnaround plan for the company, which last month reported an annual loss of £6.4bn.
In January Tesco offloaded its video-on-demand service Blinkbox to fixed-line challenger TalkTalk, which also snapped up Tesco’s 75,000 broadband and 20,000 landline telephone customers in an all-cash, debt-free deal.
