Carphone Warehouse snaps up Tandy

The Carphone Warehouse has acquired Tandy's UK operation for an undisclosed sum, placing a question mark over whether the retailer would continue to sell PCs.

The mobile communications retailer revealed the acquisition of InterTan's UK subsidiary on 25 January. The Tandy name will be retained by the 270 stores and no redundancies are expected from the 1,500 staff. The combined group will have 450 stores in the UK and 139 in Europe. Annual sales are predicted to be in excess of #350 million.

Charles Dunstone, managing director of The Carphone Warehouse, said: 'InterTan UK is a good business with an excellent infrastructure and a great deal of untapped potential.'

He added that following a rationalisation programme at Tandy, the stores had picked up business over the past 16 months: 'Tandy enjoyed a good Christmas, with like-for-like sales up 17 per cent on last year. We now plan to capitalise on this and, through investment in all operation aspects, build Tandy into a strong market player.'

A source at Tandy added: 'The Tandy name will remain for now. The whole operation including the mail order and online operation has been sold. There may be some modifications to product line-up.'

She conceded that PCs had not really been the stores' main focus, but added: 'I don't believe there will be any significant changes to the product range.'

A Carphone Warehouse representative added there would be an ongoing product review: 'The only product I know will be dropped is the karaoke machines.'