Breathe, the fourth largest ISP in the UK has gone into
liquidation with estimated losses of between £26 and £50 million,
having been unable to find extra funding needed to keep the company
afloat. The administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers, have said they
will try to sell the business as a going concern and even hope to
avoid redundancies among the 140 staff.
Breathe is a privately held company with over half a million
subscribers. It is owned by 3i and Chase Capital Partners, which
between them paid £20 million for 35% of the company’s shares, and
by founder Martin Dawes, who has a 65% shareholding. The company
had aimed for a £100 million stock market floatation just three
months ago.
Earlier this month, 50,000 subscribers to the ISP’s “Breathe
easily” service, which involved a one-off payment of £50 for
unmetered services, were told that they were being transferred to a
metered service. It now seems very unlikely that they will be
refunded.
The company has already been criticised for an expensive
television advertising campaign while being unable to meet the
demand for its services. The collapse of Breathe will add to the
problems that internet companies now face in finding
investment.
