Virgin look set to buy Pipex.
UPDATE:
Virgin Media is hot favourite to buy broadband company Pipex for about £470 Million, with a deal possible this week. But if the move goes ahead, Virgin, which has 3.3million internet customers and would add 570,000 more with Pipex, could walk into a regulatory storm over its market share.
Rival bidders for Pipex, including The Carphone Warehouse, BSkyB and BT, say they cannot compete fairly with Virgin becuse it does not have to open up its cable network to them.
Virgin is already the largest internet provider in the UK, but acquiring more customers through the Pipex deal - whose customers are carried on BT lines - could be investigated by the Office of Fair Trading.
The Pipex sale has also raised speculation about the future of Sardinia-based Tiscali, which has two million UK broadband customers. Tiscali has says it is not for sale, but it has an expensive loan to finance and investment bankers have been touting the group to rivals in the UK.
Info from The Mail on Sunday.
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