Salford-based broadband giant TalkTalk Group announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Virtual1, one of the UK’s primary wholesalers of high bandwidth services.
“Virtual1 presents an exciting opportunity for TalkTalk Group to increase scale as a national provider of Ethernet (also known as EAD or leased line) solutions and to strengthen its capabilities and market position,” said TalkTalk.
“TalkTalk Group and Virtual1 will achieve a combined EAD market share of 25%.
“It will also allow partners to benefit from Virtual1’s unrivalled capability in automation, sophisticated API capabilities and leading-edge portal experience, all built off Software Defined Network services.
“Together, the increased scale and enhanced capabilities, will further strengthen TalkTalk’s Wholesale Platform offering, confirming TalkTalk’s status as the UK’s fastest growing provider of high bandwidth services. ”
Virtual1 CEO and founder Tom O’Hagan will continue to lead the standalone business of 200 people as part of the TalkTalk Group.
TalkTalk CEO Tristia Harrison said: “Since taking the company private in February 2021 we have looked to invest to strengthen both our B2B and wholesale platforms.
“As all businesses continue to experience increasing demands for high bandwidth services, we see huge benefits in acquiring Virtual 1 coupling our national scale network with their market-leading APIs and software capabilities.
“Tom O’Hagan, CEO and founder, and his excellent team of 200 people will continue to lead the standalone business and we look forward to welcoming them to the TalkTalk family.”
O’Hagan said: “Virtual1 has built an award-winning self-service portal and suite of APIs to enable businesses to virtually manage their networks with complete visibility of real-time bandwidth, reducing partners manual intervention and cost, whilst improving the customer experience.
“We’re delighted to be able to expand the reach of our solutions and increase our scale as a network provider with TalkTalk.”
Lazard & Co., Limited acted as financial advisor to TalkTalk on the transaction.
Arma Partners acted as financial advisor to Virtual1 on the transaction, alongside Latham & Watkins as legal advisor.