NEWS 13.04.99: UK high-street electronics retailer Dixons has today confirmed it is considering floating its free internet service provider (ISP), Freeserve.
In an announcement the company says it has recruited Credit Suisse, First Boston and Cazenove & Co. to look strategically at ways of increasing Freeserve's value to shareholders. All three firms are looking particularly at a public offering of a minority interest in the business.
Dixons refused to comment on the potential value of the investment, but reports in the press value Freeserve in the region of £2bn.
Freeserve revolutionised the UK's ISP industry and its success led to a flood of other free access providers from the likes of BT and even The Sun.
13.04.04: Not only is Freeserve now no longer anything to do with Dixons, but it doesn't even exist.
The Freeserve name died last week as French parent Wanadoo decided it was time to bring it under its umbrella branding.
Perhaps the rebranding had something to do with the fact that it wasn't really 'Free' any more and many customers claimed it didn't even 'serve' all that well - but more likely it was simply to do with the fact that it was long overdue following the Wanadoo acquisition of the one-time UK ISP of choice back in late 2000.
The rocky relationship between Dixons and Freeserve finally came to an end last year when the two companies ended the distribution deal that had seen Freeserve CDs displayed and handed out in all Dixons stores.
