365 Data Centers Changes Hands

On Tuesday of this week there was some M&A in the data center space that I managed to miss.  365 Data Centers has been acquired by an investor group led by Chirisa Investments and including Lumerity Capital and Longboat Advisors.  The new owners have brought in Bob DeSantis, formerly co-founder and managing partner at Xand, as the new CEO.

365 Data Centers currently operates eight facilities in as many markets, all east of the Mississippi.  Those data centers are eight of the sixteen originally divested by Equinix to 365 Data Centers (then 365 Main) after the Switch and Data acquisition in 2012.  365 Data Centers has been selling them off in small batches over the last year or two, one recent example being this transaction with DataBank.  But the arrival of private equity suggests that the remaining footprint could become a new consolidation platform in the data center space.

In fact, the PR quoted DeSantis as calling the deal an ‘initial acquisition’, so that is certainly the intention.  Additionally, Chirisa Investments is headed by the Irish telecoms entrepreneur Colm Piercy, who will take the Chairman position for 365 Data Centers.  Piercy is said to have been looking for a starting point in the US infrastructure market since selling Viatel to Zayo a year and a half ago.  I expect we’ll be hearing more from him going forward, and probably sooner rather than later.

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Categories: Datacenter · Mergers and Acquisitions