Dixons Stores Group has bought a 24 per cent stake in UniEuro, said to be Italy's most profitable electronics retail chain, for E103m. It has an option to buy the rest of the business for E425m, and is funding the deal from existing resources.

These have been topped up nicely with the sale of E245m worth of shares in Wanadoo, the French ISP, today.

UniEuro has 61 mostly large stores in Northern Italy, and has 3 per cent of the Italian market, placing it second behind Metro, the German stores giant which has 5 per cent. As Dixons points out, the Italian electrical retailing market is very fragmented indeed. So plenty of opportunity for growth. ®