Equinix, the global interconnection and data centre company, has announced that it has entered into an agreement with The Carlyle Group for the purchase of Itconic, a leading data centre, connectivity and cloud infrastructure solutions provider in Spain and Portugal, and CloudMas, an Itconic subsidiary that is focused on supporting enterprise adoption and use of cloud services. Itconic generated approximately €55.5M or approximately $66.8M U.S. dollars of revenues for the period Q2 2017 annualised. Equinix will purchase the companies in an all-cash transaction totalling €215M or approximately $259M U.S. dollars. The agreement was signed on September 8, 2017, and the acquisition is expected to close in Q4 2017, subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approval.
The acquisition of Itconic will further strengthen Equinix’s position in Europe and will extend its footprint into two new countries within the region. The acquisition will include five data centres in four metros, with two located in Madrid, one in Barcelona, one in Seville, and one in Lisbon, and adds approximately 322,000 gross square feet to the Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centre portfolio. In addition, the CloudMas business brings a highly experienced team of technology professionals with deep expertise in hybrid cloud architectures and cloud adoption and migration strategies.
Key Facts
- Spain is the world’s fourteenth-largest economy, the sixth-largest in Europe. The acquisition of Itconic further extends Equinix’s ability to provide businesses with the direct and secure connectivity they need to expand their global reach in new and existing markets. According to the Global Interconnection Index, Interconnection is becoming an essential building block of the digital economy. By providing additional capacity in key markets, Equinix continues to play an important role in helping companies to extend their IT operations to the digital edge through the interconnection of people, locations, clouds and data.
- As a result of the acquisition, Equinix will serve more than 400 customers in Iberia, including marquis enterprise brands such as L’Oreal, Vueling, Deloitte, BNP Paribas, Repsol, Real Madrid, Randstad, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Aon and Bank of America. In addition, more than 100 network and mobility companies and more than 90 cloud and IT services companies operate at Itconic, including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. This further strengthens the business ecosystems found inside of Equinix IBX data centres and provides customers with the broadest choice of service providers for IT and multi-cloud deployments to accelerate business performance.
- The Itconic acquisition will position Equinix to support growth in traffic between Europe, Latin America and Africa driven by new submarine cable systems, which will enable accelerated traffic globalisation and data consumption, and rapid growth of cloud and online services. Some of the submarine cables already connected to Itconic’s Lisbon data centre are ACE (African Coast to Europe), WACS (West Africa Cable System), Tata Global Network. The MainOne cable will be connected in the future. In addition, the data centre in Seville is connected to Canalink.
- The acquisitions will add more than 250 employees to the Equinix team in Europe. Many members of the CloudMas team have earned certifications for deployment and support of services on leading cloud platforms.
- Bank Street served as Equinix’s financial adviser, and Uria Menendez acted as Equinix’s external legal advisers in connection with this transaction.
- Equinix currently operates more than 180 IBX data centres in 44 markets, providing customers even more ways to connect with other businesses around the world on Platform Equinix™.
Eric Schwartz, President, EMEA, Equinix said, “The large-scale deployments of new direct submarine cables between Europe, Latin America and Africa will connect through Iberia, making it a globally relevant key interconnection hub and a geographically important region for Equinix. With the acquisition of Itconic, we will continue to deliver the level of excellence and Interconnection that the industry expects and which our customers demand. Our ongoing growth signifies our commitment to the region and to developing our global footprint to support the growing digital business needs of our customers.”
Faustino Jiménez, CEO, Itconic said, “With our incorporation into Equinix’s global platform, companies operating in the Iberian peninsula will finally be able to access the largest network of interconnected data centres in the world and take advantage of its more than 180 centres in 44 different markets. At Itconic, we are proud to be part of a world-leading company that is at the forefront of IT infrastructure services and offers services that enable the digital transformation of companies on all five continents. We believe in the power of Interconnection, and this acquisition reinforces our vision of how technology can transform the way companies do business.”
