DataBank agreed to acquire Zayo Group’s zColo business, including 44 data centers across 23 markets in the U.S. and Europe. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The deal will make DataBank one of the largest privately-held data center operators in the U.S. and a leading provider of edge colocation and connectivity solutions to hyperscale, technology, and content customers across the U.S. Zayo Group will become a significant customer and continue to be an anchor tenant within the zColo facilities. Following completion of the deal, DataBank’s assets will include:
- 64 data centers in 29 markets (up from 20 data centers and 9 markets)
- Over 3,000 customers including many Fortune 100 and leading cloud and content providers
- Pro forma annual revenue of over $450M
- 1.1M raised square feet of data center space
- 141 MW of installed UPS capacity
- Over 30,000 network cross connects
- 18 major network interconnection points
- 12 cloud nodes
DataBank said the acquisition also significantly accelerates its edge and hybrid cloud strategies. The expanded data center footprint provides DataBank’s customers with new geographic options for colocating their mission-critical content, data, and workloads closer to end-user populations in key markets like Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Miami, Boston, and New York City. With double the number of private cloud nodes and public-cloud on-ramps, DataBank customers will have more flexibility to design hybrid IT solutions that adapt as their infrastructure needs evolve.
“Simply put, this highly complementary acquisition will allow us to serve customers better. The strategic rationale is fully aligned with our core ‘Data Center Evolved’ strategy built around providing customers broad geographic reach as they move their content and applications closer to the edge,” said Raul K. Martynek, CEO of DataBank. “We look forward to integrating zColo into our portfolio while elevating our existing level of service to meet the increasingly diverse workloads of our enterprise customers.”
“This agreement allows both parties to focus on their core strengths,” said Dan Caruso, Zayo Group’s CEO. “We’ll continue building the most fiber-rich digital infrastructure in the world while DataBank focuses on hosting the innovations and digital workloads that our fiber and network infrastructure were designed to fuel.”
The transaction is being funded by an investor group led by Colony Capital (NYSE: CLNY), DataBank’s controlling shareholder, which includes Nuveen Real Estate and others. In addition to leading a consortium of world-class institutional investors to support the acquisition, Colony Capital is investing $145 million from its balance sheet to maintain its 20% stake in DataBank. Debt financing associated with the transaction has been underwritten by TD Securities, Truist Securities and Société Générale, acting as Joint Lead Arrangers and Joint Bookrunners for the new Credit Facility.
