Cincinnati Bell and ABRY Partners have entered into a definitive agreement for Cincinnati Bell to acquire privately held data centre operator CyrusOne in a cash transaction valued at approximately $525m.
Upon completion of the transaction, CyrusOne will become a wholly-owned subsidiary Cincinnati Bell, retaining its brand and executive management team.
Cincinnati Bell said that the acquisition will be transformative for its data centre business, increasing the scale and scope by adding seven data centres in Houston, Dallas, and Austin with a total of 163,000 square feet of data centre capacity.
Cincinnati Bell’s Technology Solutions segment will have a combined total of 609,000 square feet of data centre capacity in 17 facilities.
Jack Cassidy, president and chief executive officer of Cincinnati Bell, said: “Data centre services are a key strategic focus for Cincinnati Bell, allowing the company to provide next generation computing and communications services for our customers. The success of this strategy is evidenced by our ability to organically build the Technology Solutions segment of our business into a $300m run rate revenue operation.
“Two important trends driving growth in data centre services are rapid adoption of internet related technologies by our enterprise customers to run their most important business functions, and the accelerating demand for outsourced solutions that allow them to better focus on their core business. The addition of CyrusOne will transform our existing data centre operations, particularly in the area of colocation services.”
