CenturyLink agreed to sell its data centers and colocation business to funds advised by BC Partners, in a consortium including Medina Capital Advisors and Longview Asset Management, for $2.15 billion in cash. The data center portfolio includes approximately 195 megawatts of power across 2.6 million square feet of raised floor capacity. CenturyLink to retain hosting and cloud assets supporting network-first and hybrid-IT strategy
CenturyLink said it plans to use the net proceeds from this sale to partly fund its acquisition of Level 3 Communications announced on October 31, 2016. CenturyLink also noted that it will continue to offer colocation services as part of its product portfolio through its commercial relationships to be entered into at closing with the BC Partners/Medina-led consortium.
“After conducting a thorough review process, we are pleased to have reached an agreement with BC Partners,” said Glen F. Post III, chief executive officer and president of CenturyLink. “We believe this transaction will benefit customers, employees and investors. Both CenturyLink and BC Partners have a strong customer focus and are committed to ensuring a seamless transition of the customers and their colocation environments.”
Justin Bateman, a managing partner at BC Partners, said, “We are excited to be acquiring CenturyLink’s portfolio of data center assets. CenturyLink has built and maintained an impressive global footprint of colocation data centers that is unparalleled for a portfolio of assets of this size. Led by Manny Medina and his management team at Medina Capital, these data centers will become part of a new, global secure infrastructure platform that will meet the growing and changing needs of customers today and for the future. We thank Glen Post and the entire team at CenturyLink for their partnership, and we look forward to working together to offer all the data centers’ existing customers, as well as new customers, unrivaled datacenter and colocation services.”
CenturyLink to Acquire Level 3 for $34 Billion
CenturyLink agreed to acquire Level 3 Communications in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $34 billion, including the assumption of debt. The deal combines CenturyLink’s larger enterprise customer base with Level 3’s global network footprint. The companies said this scale will enable further investment in the reach and speeds of its broadband infrastructure for small businesses and consumers. After close, CenturyLink’s Glen Post…
