Best Buy to Acquire Carphone Warehouse U.S. Mobile Stake

Best Buy, the world’s largest consumer-electronics retailer, agreed to buy Carphone Warehouse Group’s stake in their U.S. mobile-phone joint venture for 838 million pounds ($1.34 billion) and close the U.K. stores it opened less than two years ago.

The purchase of Carphone Warehouse’s interest in a profit- sharing agreement for the Best Buy Mobile business in the U.S. and Canada will boost earnings next year. Carphone Warehouse will return almost all of the proceeds to shareholders. Best Buy Chief Executive Officer Brian Dunn is betting on mobile phones in the U.S., where slumping television sales and competition from Amazon have led to five straight quarterly declines at stores open at least 14 months. The 11 “big box” stores that are being closed in the U.K. have been pinched by a decline in consumer spending.