Carphone Warehouse has denied reports that it has been pushed out of the bidding for the ISP Tiscali.

The Italian press has been running stories that Carphone's £550m offer for Tiscali's UK arm have been formally rejected because the company does not want to split its operations.

According to a Carphone spokesman that is news to him.  He said that as far as he knew the company was still in the game and the reports were speculative. Other companies bidding for Tiscali are Vodafone, BT and BSkyB in the U.K., and Fastweb and Wind in Italy.

According to the Independent, discussions are still in the preliminary stages and the bankers are wanting to whip up as much creative tension as they can to force all the players to the table.