British Telecom has sold Yell, its yellow pages business directory arm, for £2.14 billion (3.4 billion euros) to reduce its debt load.
Venture capitalists Apax Partners and US group Hicks, Muse, Tate/Furst bought the company, which includes the US counterpart Yellow Book.
The sale also included Talking Pages, a round-the-clock telephone-based directory, and Yell.com, a business information Internet site.
The sale was described as a "significant step" in BT's restructuring program after the group amassed 28 billion dollars in debt through expansion efforts and bidding for third-generation mobile phone licenses.
Yell recorded operating profits, before one-off costs of 210 million pounds on turnover of 778 million, in the year to March 31.
On May 10 BT, which was privatized in 1984, announced that it had ended the 2000-2001 exercise in the red (by 2.8 billion euros) for the first time ever. AFP