NEWS
BT is on the acquisition trail once again - having made a £67m offer for ISP PlusNet.
A spokesman for the telco said the company was attracted to PlusNet for its customer service, innovation and management - as well as its WorkPlace CRM system for teleworkers.
"We're wanting to use broadband to deliver more than fast access and PlusNet fits in with that," he told silicon.com. The pair has also been working together for some time and BT "has been increasingly impressed with PlusNet as a company," he added.
According to BT, should the offer be accepted, the company will continue to operate under the PlusNet name and retain its current CEO, Lee Strafford.
Sheffield based PlusNet reported EBITDA of £7.5m for the 12 months ended 30 June 2006 and the ISP has some 200,000 broadband customers, plus additional narrowband subscribers. BT's currently number around 2.98 million customers and, should the acquisition go through, the telco will increase its market share by around 1.5 per cent.
Speculation of a union first surfaced last month, when press reports of a bid by BT caused PlusNet's share price to surge.
PlusNet has also been on the acquisition trail in recent times, buying local ISP Metronet for £1.7m late last year.
BT's spokesman said the company hasn't ruled out further acquisitions and is "keeping its eye out" for companies where the timing and price is right.
Comments
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1. Richard Davies
I am a Plusnet Customer and am horrified at the news. BT are the source of any problems that occur with regards DSL connectivity. Their customer service is poor...my exchange has been a 'RED' alert status for as long as I can remember now and the ETA date for fixing just constantly slips back.
I will be moving ISP's if this is the case.
2. Alan Butcher
I've been a PN customer for years and the last year has been horrible. Especially with an infamous rollout of Ellacoya technology which is restricting users on any of their service rates from gaining reliable access to anything other than http! This is addition to pulling binary usenet without compensation, several major data losses on the platforms and ongoing email server issues. Add to this a seeminly premature move to LLU which then started to be reversed!
This created a monster backlash, stretching their support services beyond the limit. Open tickets for more than one week with not even a simple response is not good enough!
They have finally started admitting things are not good enough and will be trying to sort things out, but who knows. Will BT make anything better?
Many people appear to be leaving, I may soon follow. :(