The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Money firms sniffing around NTL/Telewest

Heaven scent

Free whitepaper – Thermal design of Dell PowerEdge server

Four private equity groups look set to pool resources in a bid to snap up NTL and Telewest once the UK cablecos merge next year.

So reports The Sunday Times, which names the cash quartet as Blackstone Group, Cinven, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Providence Equity Partners.

It seems the group is prepared to stump up £6bn for the enlarged cableco although sources told the paper that the deal still might not come to anything.

Earlier this month NTL and Telewest finally agreed to merge in a deal that values Telewest at around £3.4bn.

Once the deal is completed, the pair - whose cable networks do not overlap - will be able to provide TV, phone and broadband to more than half of UK homes.

The combined group will have almost five million residential punters and is set to be the largest provider of domestic broadband services in the UK with 2.5m subscribers.

The WSJ has already reported that private equity groups were interested in NTL/Telewest. ®

Free whitepaper – Migrating to the new Dell Management Console

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes