Tiscali

Tiscali SpA is an independent italian, mostly active in the UK telecommunications company, mainly offering broadband services.

  • 2.1 Tiscali in Switzerland ( January 2000 - Sep 2004)
  • 2.2 Tiscali in Austria (Dec 2000 - August 2004 )
  • 2.3 Tiscali in Germany ( February 2000 - May 2007)
  • 2.4 Expansion of the main activity area UK

Business

After completion of three years of massive downsizing Tiscali now operates only in the UK and Italy. Late January / early February 2007, Tiscali has announced the sale of its activities in Germany known. Tiscali has completely withdrawn in August / September 2004 from Austria and Switzerland.

In native Italy Tiscali, with a market share of five percent, behind Telecom Italia, Wind and Fastweb, and on par with Tele2 number four in broadband services. The majority of the business lies in the UK, where Tiscali, after the acquisition of broadband services and voice division of Pipex Communications Plc, with a market share of 14 % is also positioning itself as number four, behind Virgin Media, BT Group and AOL.

Tiscali employs over 1,600 people and generated 2007 annual sales of 911 million euros, of which about two-thirds in the UK and a third in Italy. The number of active users was the end of June 2008, almost 3.2 million, of which approximately 2.4 million ADSL subscribers, of which about three quarters of the UK and a quarter to Italy.

Business

Tiscali is mainly engaged in the provision of IP -based Internet broadband services, mainly in the area of ​​telephone and Internet. Beginning of 2007 is entered in the Tiscali TV Area and since then offers IPTV.

Company data

1, all figures at group level consolidated, as published in the relevant financial year in the Annual Report, including the activities later sold

Ownership

History

Founder of Tiscali is Renato Soru, who wanted in January 1998 to create an independent telecommunications provider in the wake of the liberalization of the telecommunications market in Italy. Seat of the company should be Cagliari, the capital of his native Sardinia. This Soru wanted to contribute to the business location Sardinia. The company name comes from the Monte Tiscali (518 m above sea level. M. ), a small mountaintop in Sardinia Gennargentu National Park.

Originally founded as a regional telephone and Internet service providers expanded a few months after the founding of the Italian mainland and offered in March 1999 as the first Internet Service Provider ( ISP), free internet access to. Tiscali thus secured a portion of the lost by the incumbent Telecom Italia market share.

In order to finance the growth of a pan-European provider, in October 1999, the IPO on the Milan Stock Exchange in the Nuovo Mercato segment, the market for young companies. Thanks to the capital from the IPO sat Tiscali subsequently an aggressive acquisition strategy in order that should make Tiscali one of the largest independent Internet service providers in Europe.

In the years 2000 and 2001, Tiscali took over for several billion euros several leading independent Internet service provider, the Dutch World Online International (including 12move ) and the French Liberty Surf. Within a few months took over Tiscali total of 20 companies and was active in 15 European countries as well as in South Africa. All acquisitions were not paid in cash but were made by exchange of shares of newly issued Tiscali shares. At the height of its expansion Tiscali counted in mid-2004 approximately 7.8 million active users and generated sales of EUR 1.08 billion, which Tiscali Europe behind T-Online and Wanadoo was the third largest ISP in the full year.

Tiscali had a very ambitious goal to position themselves in all active countries in the top three Internet service providers and to become the largest independent Internet service providers in Europe. However, this objective proved to be too ambitious and brought Tiscali with losses of billions in a more threatening financial difficulties that a massive disinvestment and the focus was on only a few core markets result from the summer of 2004, and a debt restructuring and a capital increase made ​​it necessary.

In order to guarantee the repayment of a bond maturing in July 2005 of 250 million euros, Tiscali was forced to make in August 2004 on a vital strategic decision had assets under management of EUR 250 million to sell and the activities only to countries with an increased potential to concentrate. Thus, the targeted pan-European strategy was definitely failed. Already 11 days later Tiscali announced the sale of its Austrian subsidiary and confirmed its exit strategy. As a result, Tiscali moved from Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Belgium, France, Denmark and partly from Spain. The activities were henceforth continued only in Italy, UK, Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic, which were referred to as markets with increased market potential.

2006 Tiscali finally decided to also withdraw completely from Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Spain, and to be active as of 2007, only in Italy and the UK.

Tiscali in Switzerland ( January 2000 - Sep 2004)

With the adoption of the Swiss ISP DataComm ( Switzerland ) AG in January 2000 took Tiscali in Switzerland foot. The Europe-wide highly aggressive expansion of Tiscali had a few months later the first negative effects. Through the acquisition of the Dutch ISP World OnLine International NV in December 2000, Tiscali was represented twice suddenly in Switzerland. It was then dismiss the 58 employees, the staff of the Swiss subsidiary World Online SA in February 2001 and merged all activities under the brand name Tiscali, to which later were added the activities of the acquired in April 2001 SurfEU.com.

Tiscali offered in Switzerland a wide range of Internet services to, but the big breakthrough came Tiscali never. Due to the announced in August 2004 disengagement plan Tiscali sold in September 2004, its Swiss subsidiary to VTX and retreated so completely from Switzerland back.

Tiscali in Austria (Dec 2000 - August 2004 )

Tiscali's entry into the Austrian telecommunications market in December 2000 through the acquisition of the Dutch Internet provider World OnLine International NV, which was already active in Austria. There were also later the activities of the acquired in April 2001 SurfEU.com Ltd. as well as those of other acquired companies, such as Merlin, pLANetONE and Vianet. In May 2003, took over Tiscali Austria's oldest Internet service provider, the EUnet IT and Internet services Ltd., whose core business was the business banking.

The range of services of Tiscali in Austria covered the areas of connectivity, VPN solutions, hosting, housing, security, business solutions, media and retail products. But as in Switzerland managed to Tiscali in Austria never that big break. So Tiscali always remained behind the then three largest Internet providers A-Online, UTA and Chello. This fact and most importantly the time pressure caused by the serious financial situation led to Tiscali, the Austrian subsidiary in August 2004 at Nextra Telecom GmbH, a subsidiary of Jordan Industries Group, to sell and to fully withdraw from Austria.

Tiscali in Germany ( February 2000 - May 2007)

The market entry in Germany in February 2000, when Tiscali, the Hamburg-based telephone and Internet companies Nikoma MediaWorks GmbH took over and from then occurred under the brand name Tiscali. With the takeover of the Dutch Internet provider World OnLine International NV, which had occurred with the purchase of Nacamar group a year ago in the German telecommunications market, Tiscali expanded its activities in Germany. In April 2001, Tiscali took over the German Internet Provider Planet - interkom. The combined activities were (range end customers, DSL) and Tiscali Business GmbH carried out by the two subsidiaries Tiscali GmbH (technical background support, corporate clients ) based in Dreieich.

Although Tiscali grew up in Germany temporarily the third largest internet provider approach, but in the strategically important broadband market counted Tiscali mid-2006 only 205,000 customers, representing a market share of just under two percent. This fact prompted the company to no longer consider Germany as a core market, so that the activities were advertised for sale in Germany.

End of January 2007, Tiscali announced that the Freenet AG will take on the B2C narrowband and broadband customers arm of Tiscali in Germany. Early February 2007, Tiscali announced the acquisition of B2B activities of Tiscali in Germany by the Ecotel Communication AG. Next Tiscali aims to sell its unbundling activities in Germany, so as to complete the full withdrawal from the German telecommunications market. End of October 2008, the last remaining free-and Webmail services have been shut down.

Expansion of the main activity area UK

In July 2007, Tiscali announced plans to buy the broadband services and voice division of Pipex Communications Plc for GBP 250 million. The transaction was definitely completed on 13 September 2007 and provides Tiscali's largest acquisition after the realignment dar. This Tiscali is expanding its operations in the UK continue from where Tiscali generates about two thirds of its sales before this takeover.

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