CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), owning and operating 59 data centers in North America, Asia and Europe with more than 185 megawatts of power across 2.6 million square feet of raised floor capacity, has retained financial advisors to assist in the exploration of strategic alternatives for the company’s data centers and colocation business operations.
The review of strategic alternatives would involve a full range of options, including a partnership or joint venture. Also, a sale of all or a portion of the data centers might be an option, as well as keeping some of these assets and operations as part of CenturyLink’s portfolio.
“We are confident in our strategy of combining enhanced network and hosting capabilities with a suite of related managed services offerings for our customers,” said Glen F. Post III, chief executive officer (CEO) and president of CenturyLink. “We expect colocation services to remain part of our service offerings, but we do not believe ownership of the physical data center assets is necessary to effectively deliver those services. Therefore, we are exploring all of the strategic alternatives available for our data centers.”
“We have not set a timetable for completion of this process and will take the time necessary to ensure we best position CenturyLink and deliver value to our shareholders, while remaining focused on providing our colocation customers excellent service,” added Mr. Post.
Global CIO Breakaway Leadership Award
Hosting Journalist is not sure if this strategic move has something to do with it, but Bill Bradley, CenturyLink’s chief information officer (CIO), was one of five CIOs that just won a Global CIO Breakaway Leadership award for his leadership and innovation. The Global CIO Breakaway Leadership awards, presented at the 2015 Global CIO Executive Summit, honor world-class CIOs whose leadership elevates employees, partners and their companies.
Mr. Bradley was recognized for leading transformation initiatives within CenturyLink’s IT organization through execution of four key strategies that increase the company’s responsiveness to the market and support delivery of advanced IP-enabled network, cloud, hosting and IT services:
- Adopting agile principles and methodologies throughout the organization
- Moving strategic workloads from internal data centers to the cloud
- Implementing enterprise-wide application services with a strong focus on reuse
- Empowering the internal workforce and the customer with mobile solutions
