Marconi Company - Marconi Name Today

Marconi Name Today

In 1999 GEC underwent a major transformation. Marconi Electronic Systems which included its wireless assets was demerged and sold to British Aerospace which then formed BAE Systems.

GEC, realigning itself as a primarily telecommunications company following the MES sale, retained the Marconi brand and renamed itself Marconi plc. BAE were granted limited rights to continue its use in existing partnerships, however by 2005 no BAE businesses use the Marconi name. Major spending and the dot-com collapse led to a major restructuring of that group, in a debt-for-equity swap shareholders were given 0.5% of the new company, Marconi Corporation plc.

In 1999 Reltec and Fore Systems were acquired at the height of the "dot-com" boom. With its subsequent collapse the Marconi Corporation got into financial difficulties.

In October 2005 the Marconi name and most of the assets were proposed to be bought by the Swedish firm Ericsson. The transaction was completed on 23 January 2006 effective as per 1 January 2006. The Marconi name will still be used as brand within Ericsson. At the time of the acquisition Ericsson announced that they would be rebranding Marconi assets Ericsson and retaining Marconi only as the name of the Italian research facility. However the company has since labeled its OMS line and its Long Haul Digital Radio system Marconi. The rest of the Marconi company was renamed as Telent.