The Mail on Sunday: PIPEX MAY BE FACING BREAK-UP: Published 29 April 2007

By Simon Fluendy

PIPEX may be broken up after the planned auction of the whole broadband business fell into disarray.

Originally BSkyB , Virgin Media, BT and The Carphone Warehouse were all said to be keen to pay as much as £470 million for Pipex, chaired by Peter Dubens.

But bidders vanished amid concerns about the valuation. Pipex's market value was £320 million on Friday.

The Carphone Warehouse last week said it was not interested in a deal, but with the price of the group's broadband subscribers alone collapsing to perhaps £100 million BT may once again consider acquiring Pipex's customers. Pipex said in December that it had 570,000 broadband subscribers and about one million phone customers, but analysts were concerned when results published this month did not provide an updated figure.

Pipex refused to comment.