CARPHONE WAREHOUSE has returned to the table in the drawn-out auction of Tiscali with a bid of less than £450m for the British arm of the broadband supplier.

The offer, some 25% less than the company’s earlier expectations of £600m, is believed to be one of two currently under consideration by Tiscali’s advisers at JP Morgan and Banca IMI.

The company put itself up for sale in May but missed a self-imposed deadline to seal a deal by the end of June.

Interested parties including BT, Vodafone and BSkyB - the satellite broadcaster 39% owned by News Corporation, ultimate owner of The Sunday Times - walked away but left their options open.

Tiscali was created from acquisitions that included Pipex and HomeChoice. It lost 37,000 customers in the last quarter but still has 1.84m.

Its shares, listed in Italy, have fallen 46% since the start of June, valuing it at £600m last Friday. That suggests investors are becoming more realistic about its worth.

Carphone has money to play with after a £1.1 billion deal in May to sell half its retail division to Best Buy of America paid off its debts.

It has 2.8m broadband customers. Adding Tiscali would allow it to leapfrog BT to become the No 1 supplier.

However, Carphone’s share price has tumbled 49% in the past 12 months on fears that mobile-phone spending will slow as Britain heads into a recession.

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