Equinix has signed a definitive agreement with Verizon to acquire 29 data centres across the US and Latin America in a $3.6bn deal.
The acquisition includes 24 data centre sites which includes 29 data centre buildings across 15 metro areas.
The sites include Atlanta (Atlanta and Norcross), Bogotá, Boston (Billerica), Chicago (Westmont), Culpeper, Dallas (Irving, Richardson-Alma and Richardson-Pkwy), Denver (Englewood), Houston, Los Angeles (Torrance), Miami (Miami and Doral), New York (Carteret, Elmsford and Piscataway), São Paulo, Seattle (Kent), Silicon Valley (Santa Clara and San Jose), and Washington, D.C. (Ashburn, Manassas and Herndon).
The transaction is expected to be completed by mid-2017.
According to Verizon, the sale is part of its strategy to focus its resources on areas which can help drive digital transformation for enterprise customers.
It also noted that the sale will not affect its managed hosting and cloud offerings or its European, Canadian and Asian data centre services.
With this acquisition, Equinix, a company focused on providing interconnection services to its corporate clientele, says that it will enable its clients to evolve their traditional businesses into ‘digital businesses’.
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Its customers can operate on an expanded global platform to process, store and distribute large volumes of sensitive data and applications, closer to end-users and local markets.
Equinix says that the network access point (NAP) of the Americas facility in Miami is an important interconnection point and can become a strategic hub and gateway for serving its customers in Latin America.
The Miami facility can also help Equinix in capturing the growing Latin American market, when combined with the data centres in Bogota and NAP in Sao Paulo. About 250 employees primarily working on the data centre operations at Verizon will join Equinix following the deal.
Equinix president and CEO Steve Smith said: “This unique opportunity complements and extends Equinix’s strategy to expand our global platform.
“It enables us to enhance cloud and network density to continue to attract enterprises, while expanding our presence in the Americas.
“The new assets will bring hundreds of new customers to Platform Equinix while establishing a presence in new markets and expanding our footprint in existing key metros. The deal will also provide significant value for shareholders as the proposed transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to our adjusted funds from operations per share upon close.”
Equinix Americas president Karl Strohmeyer said: “This deal is a significant win for our existing customers, who will gain access to new locations, ecosystems and partners.
“It is also a win for the new companies joining Equinix, as they will be able to leverage Equinix’s global footprint and unique interconnection services.
“At Equinix, companies can architect a globally consistent platform within local metros, keeping their critical data and processing capabilities as close as possible to the digital edge and end-users.”
