Cauldwell sells Singlepoint to Vodafone for €580m

THE millionaire owner of high street retailer Phones4U sold his mobile phone service business yesterday to the world’s biggest mobile operator for £405 million or €580 million.

John Caudwell announced the disposal of Singlepoint, a wholly-owned subsidiary of his Caudwell Holdings group, to the British arm of Vodafone.

The deal is expected to enable Vodafone, which provides network airtime to 1.5 million Singlepoint contract customers, to avoid having to share revenues with Singlepoint.

Midlands-born Mr Caudwell and his brother Brian set up Singlepoint in Stoke-on-Trent in 1993.

It now claims to be Britain’s largest independent mobile phone service provider, with more than 1,900 staff and 1.9 million contract customers.

The business buys airtime from network operators like Vodafone and sells it to its customers, setting up their contracts, billing and handling complaints and queries. With an annual turnover of £2.5 billion, the Caudwell Group employs 7,000 people and includes Phones4U, gadget retailer The Discovery Store, mobile phone distributor 20:20 Logistics and the Dextra accessories business.

Speaking to PA News from Barcelona, Mr Caudwell said he plans to use a small part of the proceeds of the deal to turn Phones4U into the number one retailer in Britain for mobile phones.

But he added that the group will use most of the money to make “a major acquisition in the next year or two,” which would not necessarily be in the cellular phone or telecoms industry.

He said: “the extra money will be nice to have, but not essential, but it will be essential when we come into the acquisition market.” He did not give further details.

Mr Caudwell said the group began to consider disposing of Singlepoint at least nine months ago. It believed Singlepoint’s market had reached maturity and growth opportunities were reducing. The group drew up a shortlist after a series of potential buyers showed interest.

But it decided to do the deal with Vodafone in view of the company’s backing for Singlepoint during the last 12 years.

“It would have been a bitter body blow for them if the customer business had gone to someone else,” Mr Caudwell said.

“It was ethically, morally and practically the right thing to do.”

A Vodafone spokesman said the group had made “no firm decisions” regarding the future of Singlepoint’s staff.

But he added that it had no immediate plans for any job losses and that the business would continue to operate from its base in Stoke-on-Trent for the time being.

The spokesman added: “our focus is on growing the business.”