2018 M&A Review: Colo Edition

There was plenty of M&A activity in the world of colo and data centers this year.  Let’s take a quick trip back and remember what happened, starting off with the bigger players.

Equinix clearly went into this year with an international expansion plan, because they made at least 5 deals outside the USA. In February, the data center giant bought IO’s Slough data center as well as the Zurich facility of ICT-Center. Then in September Equinix made a key move on the Iberian peninsula by buying Itconic and its five data centers there. A month later it was Zenium’s three locations in Istanbul. And finally, in December they went big down under with a purchase of MetroNode.

Digital Realty did its buying in one lump sum and kept it closer to home with the acquisition of DuPont Fabros. Meanwhile they sold off a piece or two out of that extensive portfolio, including a facility in Austin that wound up in the hands of Vxchnge.  Elsewhere in the larger REIT world, CyrusOne made an inorganic move of its own, acquiring two big data centers from Sentinel.

Meanwhile, the next tier size-wise was making moves to add national depth and scale.

Iron Mountain flexed its muscles this year in the colo world with two big deals. In July they acquired FORTRUST, and in December they followed up with the purchase of IO.

The regional providers Peak10 and Viawest merged into the national yet rather-unoriginally-named (for now) Peak 10 + Viawest. But they have been on the move both via organic expansion and recently via acquisition, picking up a big facility in Collegeville PA from GlaxoSmithKline.

Meanwhile, 365 Data Centers got a new owner. With those new backers in tow they went out and acquired Host.Net in the southeastern US.

Digital Bridge made two interesting deals taking its footprint to new markets. Their DataBank division bought C7 Data Centers to enter Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, Digital Bridge acquired Vantage Data Centers, getting into Santa Clara as well.

H5 made two acquisitions in Ohio, adding large facilities in Cleveland and in Cincinnati.   Green House Data added a presence in the southeastern USA with the acquisition of Cirracore.

And several colo operators added depth closer to home. Zayo bought a facility in Westminster along the Colorado Front Range. Similarly, Netherlands-based Interxion purchased a data center from Vancis in the Amsterdam Science Park.

I’m sure I missed a few, feel free to remind me in the comments below.

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Categories: Datacenter · Mergers and Acquisitions