C&W stems sales slide, invests in telcos

C&W has stopped its UK sales slide and snapped up Monaco's telecom company.

Annual sales in the UK remained roughly stable for the first time in years at £1.66bn, roughly half of the group's total turnover of £3.38bn.

CEO Francesco Caio said in a statement: "This year is the year of reconstruction in the UK. We are increasingly confident in our performance for the next 12 months, but our focus is still not on growth."

Instead, the company is looking for small telcos around the world to buy and is to invest £70m in UK broadband capacity. Last week, it announced that it was paying £18.6m for UK broadband specialist Bulldog.

The company has also paid £108m for a 49 per cent stake in Monaco Telecom, which made an £18m operating profit last year. Monaco retains a 45 per cent stake in the telephone company, with a local bank holding a six per cent stake.

C&W is the largest competitor for BT in the business market. Local loop unbundling is opening that market to competition.

The company has suffered since the dot-com collapse. It had to bail out of the US market and cut 1,300 staff in the last year. However, C&W has a cash mountain estimated at £1.4bn and has re-instated the dividend that it cut last year.