Octopus Investments Reportedly Set to Buy TalkTalk’s UK Wholesale Business

A new report has today claimed that Octopus Investments, via infrastructure investor Fern Trading, is on the verged of entering into advanced talks to acquire TalkTalk Group’s wholesale broadband and Ethernet business – PlatformX Communications (PXC). TalkTalk’s consumer business is also now said to be fielding interest from Opus Broadband, in addition to Vodafone and possibly others.

Last month ISPreview reported that PXC had attracted interest from both Africa-focused Telecel and private equity firm Epiris (here), the latter of which was said to have teamed up with PXC executive chairman Tom O’Hagan (he only recently helped acquire business provider Entanet from full fibre operator CityFibre – here). But SkyNews now claims that Octopus appears to have beaten interest from Epiris to become the front-runner for a deal.

The talks, if confirmed in the very near future, are expected to value the business in the hundreds of millions of pounds and will require a period of exclusivity – lasting several weeks – in order to try and finalise an agreement. The deal is particularly interesting because Fern Trading also backs wholesale fibre business AllPoints Fibre Networks (APFN) and London-focused business ISP Vorboss.

The news follows shortly after other reports indicated that broadband and mobile operator Vodafone (VodafoneThree) had tabled a bid for TalkTalk’s consumer business (here), which is a pairing that would seem to be quite complementary. According to SkyNews, wireless ISP Opus Broadband (formerly 6G Internet), which is connected to network operator IX Wireless and Tahir Mohsan, is also understood to have expressed an interest in bidding.

Suffice to say that the future of TalkTalk’s various debt-troubled businesses may finally be decided before the end of 2027, although it’s important to stress that anything can happen and no final agreements have yet been reached. But of course it’s also possible that the leaks to Sky could be part of a tactical strategy by interested parties.

One other thing worth considering is that TalkTalk’s consumer business is strongly linked to PXC’s wholesale products. In other words, any deal for one side of the business or the other may well require some agreement on how that relationship continues into the future.