The Hoff boosts broadband

By JAMES ASHTON
Updated:

 

One is a leather-clad former Baywatch star. The other is a dotcom millionaire who likes spear fishing off his yacht in the Bahamas.

David Hasselhoff, The Hoff

But how successful has the unlikely partnership of ladies' man David Hasselhoff and Peter Dubens, the chairman of broadband supplier Pipex, been?

In a fiercely competitive market, the answer seems to be reasonably so.

Since the Hoff was recruited to a £3m campaign in September, takeover target Pipex has put on an extra 13,000 customers over and above its recruitment rate a year earlier.

Charles Chichester at Cazenove calculates net additions stood at 7,500 a month last autumn, compared with 4,300 12 months earlier.

Dubens is satisfied. 'The Hoff advertising has certainly raised awareness for Pipex as a brand,' he said.

The company even released a record on the back of the campaign featuring the Baywatch and Knight Rider legend.

However, Pipex's broadband customer base remains at 570,000 after it discovered fewer of the customers it bought from Cable & Wireless were actually spending money.

Some 30,000 of the 110,000 it bought from C&W's Bulldog arm turned out to be ' dormant'. Pipex (flat at 13¼p) will pay less as a result.

Folding in the other acquisitions of Homecall and Toucan, full year sales are up 122% to around £295m.

So is a sale of the business in the offing? Pipex would cost BSkyB or Carphone Warehouse up to £400m. Both are keen to scale up to compete with BT.

Dubens admits: 'There is a review we do every year. We might buy something. We might do nothing.' But he insists there are no sale talks at the moment. In the meantime, Pipex will shortly resume marketing its services, which include home phone calls and line rental.

Dubens adds: 'The common theme is not that people are moving for price. 'People move if they have bad customer service so we are spending more on that.' Dubens, who owns 6% of Pipex, picked up £7.5m in December when Sky agreed to buy 365 Media, his collection of sports news and betting websites that include oddschecker.com.

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