Breathe sold for second time in six months

NEWS Struggling UK ISP breathe.com has been sold by its one-time saviour GUS, less than six months after being bought by the retail group. The £1.75m sale will mean the loss of at least 70 jobs at the ISP - nearly the entire workforce - dismaying staff who thought their future had been secured in January when GUS bought the company. GUS refused to disclose the cost of the redundancies. The business has been bought by Affinity Internet Holdings, a UK web-technology consultancy who previously cited Breathe as one of its high-profile customers. Breathe is still loss-making, burning through £600,000 in cash each month, according to Affinity. GUS has held on to Breathe's technology for multi-device access to the internet. It paid £1.4m for it in January, making no secret of the fact it was motivated by a desire for Breathe's 'next generation' multi-device internet access technology. However it continued to run the loss-making ISP, serving Breathe's 650,000 customers. Wayne Lochner, CEO of Affinity, said in a statement that it will operate the Breathe service on a significantly lower cost than previously, and will offer Breathe customers an enhanced service with personalised content.