Carphone Warehouse (CPW) this week bought out AOL Europe's minority holding in its Mviva mobile portal for £2.7m in new shares.

The mobile phone retailer said the acquisition completes the restructuring of its data interests. CPW will "continue to enjoy a strong ongoing commercial relationship with AOL".

This will not mark one of AOL better deals. In June 2000, CPW proclaimed that "AOL will acquire 15% of Mviva in return for providing pan-European functionality, content and services as well as payment of $25 million in cash. The agreement gives AOL the right to acquire a further 4.9% of Mviva within the next 12 months, at a valuation of Mviva of $700 million".

We guess that AOL balked at the second round.

Launched in September 2000, Mviva was intended to compete with the likes of Vizzavi for the European market. As we all know, the mobile ISP market has failed so far to take off as originally anticipated. ®

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