Marconi Communications

Marconi Communications was the telecommunications arm of Britain's General Electric Company plc (GEC) between 1998 and 2005.

It was founded in August 1998 through the amalgamation of GEC Plessey Telecommunications (GPT) with other GEC subsidiaries: Marconi SpA, GEC Hong Kong, and ATC South Africa. One year later, it became the principal subsidiary of Marconi plc, formed by renaming the remainder of GEC when GEC's defence arm, Marconi Electronic Systems, was sold to British Aerospace to form BAE Systems. Shortly thereafter, Marconi used the cash raised by selling its defence arm to purchase the US telecoms companies RELTEC Corporation and FORE Systems with the aim of becoming a major telecommunications systems provider. To this end, it entered into a series of deals and partnerships, including with the British railway infrastructure company Railtrack, to provide telecoms infrastructure. However, Marconi was perceived as slow to recognise the end of the dot-com bubble, and was compelled to implement cutbacks, which included 4,000 job cuts, as a result of fiscal underperformance while carrying a high debt burden. In June 2001, Marconi sold its Ipsaris network backbone business to Easynet via an all-share deal worth in excess of £300 million.

During May 2003, Marconi was restructured to Marconi Corporation plc and undertook a debt-for-equity swap. Months later, it sold its sizeable stake in Easynet to reduce corporate debts. During 2005, despite having been widely viewed as a strong candidate for BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) programme, Marconi Corporation failed to secure any work. Shortly thereafter, the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson acquired much of the firm, while the remainder of Marconi Corporation was renamed Telent.