Carphone Warehouse confirms split plans

The Carphone Warehouse has confirmed plans to separate its mobile phone business from its TalkTalk fixed line and broadband operations.

The confirmation follow recent speculation that TalkTalk is to overhaul its brand positioning in its latest marketing campaign, ditching the tagline ‘Let’s do it together’.

In its fourth quarter results today (April 22), Carphone Warehouse says the timing of the separation would depend on how costly it is to split the group’s credit facilities. The split will create two listed firms, with Carphone founder Charles Dunstone set to be executive chairman of both.

It comes after TalkTalk reported it had added a net 74,000 broadband connections in the first three months of 2009 while mobile connections were up 12% to 3 million. Subscription connections were up 2% to 1.1 million.

In its trading statement Carphone Warehouse says that full-year earnings were set to be in-line with expectations.

“The macro environment will undoubtedly present challenges in the year ahead but at this stage we are not seeing it deteriorate further,” says chief executive Charles Dunstone.

He adds: “We are well funded, and have clear and simple strategies for our two businesses which balance growth with tight operational efficiency and cash generation.”

The group predicts that the coming year will see similar sales and profits to the year just completed.

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