TalkTalk confirms official launch of PlatformX Communications
Salford-based telecommunications group, TalkTalk, has announced a shake-up at its wholesale services business.
Last month the division was the centre of reports that Australian banking group, Macquarie, was considering investing £450m for a 40% stake in the wholesale arm of the broadband provider.
TalkTalk, founded by Sir Charles Dunstone, is undergoing a break-up after TalkTalk Business Direct (TTBD), the business and enterprise-focused connectivity provider, was acquired last October after shareholders, including Sir Charles, set up a special purpose vehicle to effect the £95m acquisition.
The sale was the first phase of a demerger strategy to create three separate businesses – TalkTalk Consumer, PXC, and TalkTalk Business Direct. TalkTalk’s consumer arm is expected to be sold at a later date.
Today (March 13), it was announced that TalkTalk Wholesale Services has rebranded as PlatformX Communications (PXC), led by CEO Tom O’Hagan.
PXC has been operating as an independent company within TalkTalk Group from the beginning of this month.
Born from the combination of Virtual1 and TalkTalk’s Wholesale Services and national network business, PXC, says it is now the UK’s largest independent wholesale telecoms platform for connectivity, cloud, voice and ICT services, backed by the UK’s largest network.
PXC said it offers customers access to its Tier 1 national network covering 98% of UK premises, and is the only scale aggregator of alternative networks.
Tom O’Hagan said: “The launch of our new company and our new brand underlines our ambition to offer genuine choice to the wholesale market, and builds on more than 20 years of dedicated investment and expertise developed through TalkTalk and Virtual1.
“We firmly believe that competition and innovation are essential to market growth, and that doing things differently requires players like us, with an appetite for developing new approaches and challenging the status quo.”
He added: “Thanks to our heritage, PXC is a core part of a vibrant, competitive wholesale market, which should serve as the foundation for innovation for business and wider society.”
Mr O’Hagan joined TalkTalk in March 2022, on the acquisition of Virtual1, one of the largest wholesale providers in the UK B2B market, which he founded in 2007.
He first integrated Virtual1 with TalkTalk’s Wholesale Services business, and then its network and security arm, creating PXC.
He has more than 20 years’ experience in the telecoms industry, having worked for leading global telecommunication providers both in the UK and the USA before founding Virtual1.
TalkTalk is heavily indebted. In 2020 private equity firm Toscafund took TalkTalk private in a £1.1bn deal.
