Tiscali in for BT subsidiary

NEWS The purchase of Interkom, announced on Thursday, will consolidate Tiscali's position as Europe's second largest ISP behind T-Online, with the deal also making it Germany's fourth largest ISP with 1.2 million active clients. Tiscali, which bought World Online for $4.5bn last year, is also rumoured to be in purchase talks with UK ISP ic24 from media group Trinity Mirror, as it continues its pledge to expand throughout Europe. A spokesman for ic24, confirmed the ISP is up for sale and that it is in talks with Tiscali and a number of other undisclosed parties. Last month Tiscali announced widening pre-tax losses for fiscal 2000 (excluding the acquisition of World Online completed in December) of E187.9m (£120m) from a loss of E9.5m (£6.1m) in 1999. Tiscali said it has spent millions on acquisitions and marketing in a drive to become a top-three ISP in each of the 16 countries it operates in.