LineOne bosses to head Tiscali's UK ISP

So who's the weakest link?

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 15th May 2001 09:42 GMT

The board of recently acquired LineOne is to head-up Tiscali's operation in the UK as the Italian ISP moves to create one single branded operation in Britain.

Insiders have told The Register that Mary Turner, the current MD of LineOne, and all but one of the current board of will run the enlarged ISP made up of World Online UK, LibertySurf UK and LineOne which the Italian telco acquired during the last year.

It's unclear at this stage what will happen to the senior management team at WorldOnline UK, which includes CEO Simon Preston.

Most of the senior staff at LibertySurf UK - including former MD Paul Shalet - have already left the company.

No one at Tiscali, LineOne, or WorldOnline was prepared to comment on the appointment - or what would happen to other staff at LineOne.

However, it's known that Tiscali has been undertaking a strategic review of its UK operation for some time in a bid to eliminate triplication.

Part of the review, known as "Project Integra", was to ditch WorldOnline's "calls and access" telecoms reseller business which resulted in the loss of 53 jobs at a call centre in Kent.

Sources claimed that this was just the first of sweeping cuts to be made at the enlarged operation.

None of this, of course, should come as any surprise. In all but the most extreme of cases, the task of amalgamating three companies into one is certain to require plenty of scope for rationalisation.

Tiscali bought LineOne last month for £62.3 million in paper and a small amount of cash. ®