Carpetright has agreed terms to sell the business to its biggest shareholder Meditor in a deal that values the floor specialist at £15.2 million.

Shareholders will receive just 5p-a-share, having been at 35p in April, although many will be pleased to not see the company collapse into administration.

Carpetright first revealed last month it was in talks with Meditor - run by poker-playing hedge funder Talal Shakerchi - last month.

The retailer has debts of about £56 million, and has said it needs about £80 million to both pay off debts and give it sufficient cash to grow the business.

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Bob Ivell, chairman of Carpetright, said: "We believe the offer is in the best interests of all stakeholders.

"While we have made significant progress with our recovery plan for the Carpetright Group, our ability to invest in the future of the business has been constrained against the backdrop of limiting banking covenants and a very challenging consumer market."

Mr Shakerchi of Meditor said: "With Meditor's support and financial backing and without the constraints of a public market listing, Carpetright will be well positioned to compete more effectively.

"This will facilitate substantially increased investment in Carpetright's committed employees and its store estate as well as driving new initiatives and improvements."

Shares in BT dropped nearly 4% and TalkTalk put the sale of one of its businesses on hold after the Labour Party announced plans to turn broadband into a public service.

Jeremy Corbyn is due to officially announce the new policy in a speech in Lancaster this morning.

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Labour has costed the policy at £20 billion, saying it will deliver free full-fibre internet to every home and business by 2030 if it wins the General Election.

BT chief executive Philip Jansen said the Labour Party had dramatically under-estimated the price of its pledge, saying it would cost closer to £100 billion.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: "You've got a big capital investment, say £30 to £40 billion, if you're giving it away free, for example, that's probably another £5 billion a year of revenue that Open Reach currently gets in from its customers.

The BT share price later stabilised to just a 2% fall - nevertheless wiping nearly £500 million off the company's value.

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Meanwhile TalkTalk's chief executive Tristia Harrison told the PA news agency the sale of its full fibre broadband business, FibreNation, has been put on hold after the Labour announcement.

Talk Talk figures today  showed it added nearly 300,000 customers in the first half of the financial year as its swung into the black, changing a £4 million loss into a £4 million profit before tax

Somerset-based Haynes Publishing, best known for producing car repair manuals in the days before the internet, has put itself up for sale.

The firm said a successful transition to online content "data and innovative workflow solutions" had turned around its fortunes over the past five years and would be better served by "becoming part of an organisation with the financial resources to invest for future expansion".