Liberty Surf sold to Italian ISP

French internet service provider Liberty Surf has been snapped up by Italian internet company Tiscali.

The acquistion will leave Tiscali, which recently purchased Dutch portal World Online, with around 10.7 million registered users and 4.9 million active users across Europe.

UK retail group Kingfisher and Europ@web, an internet investment group owned by French businessman Bernard Arnault, both agreed to sell their combined stake of 73 per cent to Tiscali. Other minority shareholders will receive identical terms via a public offer.

Kingfisher said it had accepted £149m for its 37 per cent stake in the company. The retailer and Europ@web will get 0.365 Tiscali shares for each Liberty Surf share, along with 2.13 euros per share, representing a cash amount of 71 million euros (£45.2m).

Sir Geoffery Mulcahy, chief executive at Kingfisher, said: "Liberty Surf has been a successful ecommerce venture for Kingfisher. Much of the success of Liberty Surf is due to the impetus provided by the distribution of free membership discs through our network of stores."

"With the European ISP market now consolidating, today's deal enables us to realise this value created for our shareholders. Looking forward, we will focus our ecommerce activities on complementing our exisitng offer to our customers," Mulcahy added.