Talk Talk facing possible insolvency

sourcrates

Looks like Talk Talk may be in trouble soon:

TalkTalk warns it faces collapse within weeks (msn.com)

fatbelly

Doesn't surprise me. You cannot continue undercutting your competition on price and providing rubbish customer service indefinitely.

I presume they are trying to get someone to pay them £1 for the business

DisabledDan

I really despise the culture at TalkTalk, I never put this down to the founder but more the Chief Exec who Dodo Harding, it was during her tenure that TT were in the news for all the wrong reasons.  She was chair of NHS Improvement from 2017 to 2021 and as interim chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and head of NHS Test and Trace from 2020 to 2021. 

Hands up those who thought she did a wonderful job in those subsequent roles?

TT failed to protect customer data and got fined several times, they used a broadband test as a lead generation tool and got in trouble over that and they outsourced their call centre abroad with inadequate access control and got in trouble over that.

I read that Dodo replacement Tristia Harrison effectively stepped down to become head of wholesale division. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/26/talktalk-boss-tristia-harrison-steps-down-amid-break-up/

Despite all of the above I really don't want them to go bust because there is already a massive lack of competition in the Broadband market.  People have suggested it started with BT acquiring EE, but it seems to be more to it, others have speculated that the big players have a gentleman's agreement not to compete.

All I know is that this is not a competitive market and I feel that OFGEM has a lot to answer for here.  

When we were in the world of 3g we were told that Mobile phone 4g providers would compete with Broadband providers to bring us cheap broadband, well that did not happen and probably because of the mergers OFGEM has allowed to happen.  In fact OFGEM is allowing even less competition by allowing mobile phone companies to merge.

Personally I think that BT Wholesale / OpenReach should be spun off from BT,

I think PlusNet should be spun off from BT, perhaps with an infusion of TalkTalk.

I think EE should be spun off from BT and made to compete in both mobile and 

Sky no longer competes on Mobile or Broadband.

I think that the CMA should give a helping hand to the smaller players so that they can grow to become serious competition 

OFGEM needs to reduce the cost of Fibre broadband, consider that we had MSE annual deals of £6 per annum from Sky 

BT have been bleating about costs of infrastructure for years but they do not justify the prices they are charging broadband providers and end users alike.

So where does this leave confidence in TT?  

I didn't think Charlie Dunstone wouth throw good money after bad, but as he is a large shareholder and he as built the business he might have a soft spot for it or just worry about losing the value of his shareholding.

It was reported that he was already buying up the business division last October which probably helped keep the lights on.

https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/2121915-dunstone-leads-buyout-of-talktalk-business-division

However, now it seems the banks want to reduce their exposure from over £300m and the company is trying to flog it's aussie biz ofr £450m, but will this be enough to fund £685m of bonds that fall due in February next year.

The real issue is reported to be that it has too much debt and can't afford to service that debt, the banks would not be reducing their exposure unless they had doubts and one has to wonder what hope their is.  Even if Dunstone and other shareholders pump £180m or £200m that will just reduce the overdraft by maybe half.

They are hoping to get raise £450m from the sale of a large stake in its wholesale arm to Australian investment giant Macquarie.but that company might prefer to wait it out and see if they can get it substantially cheaper if TalkTalk goes into administration.  Also what is the income reduction from that business because that will have to be accounted for.

If they raised the £450m that does not pay off £685m and even if they manage to raise the difference one wonders at what rate of interest, if the fundamental issue is that the cost of servicing debt that jumped from £70m to £106m, are they just swapping providers?  Surely they need to cut massively cut operational costs to the bone, .I don't see any mention of redundancies.  

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/20/founder-sir-charles-dunstone-prepares-to-bail-out-talktalk/

sourcrates

I don`t particularly like them for most of the reasons you have stated Dan, but my Broadband contract is with them, and I have only recently secured a new 24 month deal four months ago @ only £25 per month for fibre35.

We are limited in our area who we can choose for broadband, so I hope they find some money from somewhere.

Rob_Wills

The ISP / communications industry has been grossly overcharging for many years; BT's Plusnet and Shell are amongst the worst on all measures.  TalkTalk customers should walk away and refuse the £10 extortionate increase.

Currently every household should be entitled to basic services of a landline (telephone calls excluded) and a minimum download speed of say 25 Mbps for £12 / month - https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/saving-money/social-tariffs#full-list-of-available-tariffs - gives some help but not enough to tens of millions living in poverty who don't qualify.

Contrary to the businesses perception, millions of us don't have or use a mobile.

cumbrianmale

I absolutely hope they fold. I once worked for sky and could have free BB as an employee. Once my contact was up with TT I went to switch which failed 3 times. TT was blocking it and claiming it was Sky not processing the line transfer properly. In the end I had to terminate my line with TT and get a new line and number with Sky.

Good riddance to they I say.

Andice

I've been following along with this in The Telegraph.  I work from home and cannot be without internet or I should have to return to the Office to work.  Long commute
Should I be changing supplier now ?

MeteredOut

Andice said:

I've been following along with this in The Telegraph.  I work from home and cannot be without internet or I should have to return to the Office to work.  Long commute
Should I be changing supplier now ?

I'm with TT too. My thinking is that if they did fail, they we'd not be switched off, but would have a managed transition to a new supplier. But, I can't find anything that states this must happen, so I will be keeping an eye on things.

sourcrates

Apparently a rescue deal has been struck today, according to the news.

Andice

I've been meaning to move for a long while - but keep putting it off only because of the email address.  These days everyone wants you to have an account to shop online and you have to use the email address to create the account, will be a nightmare changing.  The only reason they want the email address is so they can send you 3 x emails a day for the rest of your life (and probably beyond)  Talktalk don't seem to have much of a spam filter hence 30k unread emails in my inbox.  Did see that the previous owner(s) had put some more cash in, but didn't look like enough to solve the whole problem

MeteredOut

Andice said:

I've been meaning to move for a long while - but keep putting it off only because of the email address.  These days everyone wants you to have an account to shop online and you have to use the email address to create the account, will be a nightmare changing.  The only reason they want the email address is so they can send you 3 x emails a day for the rest of your life (and probably beyond)  Talktalk don't seem to have much of a spam filter hence 30k unread emails in my inbox.  Did see that the previous owner(s) had put some more cash in, but didn't look like enough to solve the whole problem

Lesson for others - NEVER use your ISPs free email address as your main email. Use one of the free gmail, outlook.com etc ones.