CyrusOne Files for IPO as REIT

Investors may soon have another datacenter REIT on their hands. CyrusOne, the carrier neutral colocation division of Cincinnati Bell, has filed with the FCC in preparation for an initial public offering as a real estate investment trust.  If they follow through, they would join Digital Realty, CoreSite, and Dupont Fabros as publicly traded datacenter REITs.

CyrusOne operates large footprints in Cincinnati, Houston, and Dallas, with smaller facilities in Austin, Singapore, and London, for 23 facilities serving more than 800K square feet of colocation space. The company has grown rapidly over the past few years, now exceeding $200M in run rate revenue.

Earlier this week, CyrusOne unveiled plans for a major expansion down in Houston. They’ll be building a third data center on their Houston West campus, adding 120,000 square feet and 24MW of power. That will give them some 300,000 square feet of space in Houston when complete, the target date for which is Q1 of 2013.

It’s interesting that Cincinnati Bell is choosing to monetize their carrier neutral colo business so soon after their larger brethren bought such assets (CenturyLink/Savvis, Verizon/Terremark) as part of their cloud efforts. While the data in such SEC filings is there just to calculate fees and must be taken with a grain of salt, the IPO proposes to raise some $300M.

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Categories: Datacenter