TalkTalk Business has made good on its pledge to make further M&A moves in the IT space as it announced plans to merge with £100m-revenue MSP ARO.
Ranking 48th in Oxygen 250 2026, Microsoft, Dell, Vodafone and Gamma partner ARO has been owned since 2020 by private equity house MML Capital.
The merger – which is set to close later this summer – marks TalkTalk Business’ second IT-centric deal since it demerged from parent TalkTalk in February.
In the wake of its acquisition of £16m-revenue MSP Planet IT in March, TalkTalk Business CEO Ruth Kennedy indicated that further M&A was needed as the newly demerged outfit rounds out its IT proposition.
The Manchester-based outfit is looking to reinvent itself as a managed network services provider focused on the SME and enterprise space, which Kennedy said would throw it into competition with the likes of Wavenet, Focus Group and O2 Daisy.
The deal – which creates an independent connectivity and managed technology services provider with revenues of £200m and 650 employees – ranks among the UK IT channel’s most significant M&A moves of 2026.
Activity has heated up in recent weeks, with Six Degrees selling up to Claranet in June and OryxAlign and UBDS bagging private equity investment in June and July, respectively (see here and here).
Although ARO was seen as one of “six horsemen” leading consolidation of the cloud comms space in the early 2020s, its M&A activity has slowed to a halt in recent years.
Revenues for its year to 31 March 2025 slid 7% to £99.6m.
The Godalming-based outfit has been on its own comms-to-IT journey under MML, morphing from a telecoms ISP into a majority IT managed services business. It rebranded from Arrow Business Communications in 2023.
ARO’s prowess in cloud, cyber and managed IT services gels nicely with TalkTalk Business’ connectivity, networking and communications bent, the duo said.
“This merger represents another important step in our transformation into a leading managed services provider and brings together two highly complementary businesses to create a leading independent technology partner for UK organisations,” Kennedy said in a canned comment.
ARO CEO Ciaran Rafferty characterised the move as a “defining moment for both ARO and TalkTalk Business”.
“Together, we are creating a business with the scale, expertise and ambition to become a leading independent provider of connectivity and managed technology services in the UK,” he stated.
Subject to final approval under the National Security Investment Act, the merger is expected to be concluded by the end of the summer. The duo declined to give further details of the structure of the deal before then.
