Mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse said it was buying out its joint venture partner Best Buy Co Inc for 471 million pounds ($730 million), ending a five-year relationship. Carphone Warehouse owns half of Carphone Warehouse Europe, which operates around 2,400 stores in nine European countries under the Carphone Warehouse and Phone House brand, with the U.S. retailer owning the other half.The British group, Europe's biggest seller of mobile phones, also owns a 47 percent interest in Virgin Mobile France. It said the two companies had decided to separate to focus on their own regions.The company announced the news as CPW Europe posted like-for-like revenue growth of 6.5 percent, reflecting a continued strong performance in Britain.Analysts were expecting fourth-quarter like-for-like sales growth of about 4-5 percent, slowing from the 8 percent growth posted in its third quarter, the first full quarter of iPhone 5 sales.
Best Buy Co., Inc. is a multinational retailer of consumer electronics, computing and mobile phone products, entertainment products, appliances and related services. Shares of BBY traded higher by 2.98% or $0.7/share to $24.20. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $11.20 and as high as $26.29. On average, 11679200 shares of BBY exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 5288810.
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