Savvis Rumors Persist

The M&A speculation storm that has surrounded Savvis (news, filings) [a subsidiary of CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings)] doesn’t seem to be letting up.  Today a rumor circulated that they had hired Qatalyst Partners out of San Francisco to advise them.  That seemed reasonable enough, but Savvis CEO Jim Ousley quickly poured ice water on the idea:

“We have not had any discussions with Qatalyst, not a single one.  We have no idea where that rumor came from, we’ve never talked to those people.”

Not exactly mincing words, eh?  I sense a bit of irritation, and I don’t blame him.  It’s not easy working in a fishbowl surrounded by traders who are looking to make a quick buck – many of whom likely have a rather foggy notion of what exactly cloud computing is or just how much time and trouble Savvis went through to put themselves where they are.

The general idea though is that if Verizon liked Terremark so much, then sooner or later another gorilla of the telecommunications space will pull a parallel move.  And despite the fact that nearly everyone has moved to become associated with the cloud, there are precious few perfect targets to be had who are publicly traded with sufficient liquidity, have been working on this for half a decade, and are just the right size morsel to digest.  So *if* there is an unstoppable trend, then Savvis will sooner or later get an offer that it can’t refuse, and guessing when & who is the favorite sport of traders.

However, I still think that the company has far greater potential as an independent force than as an incumbent appendage.  Oh well, it can’t be helped – traders will be traders and at least Savvis is in the spotlight for a good reason.

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Categories: Cloud Computing · Datacenter · Mergers and Acquisitions