BT to buy ailing Scoot.com for £8m

ONLINE directory Scoot has been bought by BT for £8m to save its parent from insolvency. The terms of the deal involve BT buying the company's trading assets from former internet high-flyer Scoot.com, leaving a listed shell behind. It completes a full circle for Scoot, formed in 1996 when the Freepages telephone directories company was reversed into a shell company.

The company was worth £2.5bn at the peak of the dotcom boom, but fell on hard times when the bubble burst in 2000. Last year it lost £35m and had net assets of only £3.3m.

In a letter to shareholders, directors said that the company would be bust unless the deal was approved.

BT said it would fold Scoot into its operator and directory services operations ahead of the deregulation of UK directory services later this year.

Earlier this month the company disclosed that five former directors, led by former chief executive Robert Bonnier, received salary and bonus last year totalling more than £2m.

Shares in Scoot.com today rose 12% to 0.75p.