On a regular basis, the HostingJournalist.com editorial staff publishes a special selection of editorial pieces on a certain topic or trend. The HostingJournalist.com editor’s picks are being marked as #HJPICKS on our social media channels. This week our editors provide you with a Top-12 list of the most interesting news items on the latest mergers and acquisitions within the global cloud, hosting and data center market.
UKFast Valued At £405M After Inflection Private Equity Acquires 30% Stake
December 2018 – UKFast, a fast-growing hosting provider from the UK with 350 employees across its Manchester campus, London sales office and data centers, has announced a 30% stake acquisition UKFast by Inflexion Private Equity. After expectations about the company to be worth upwards of £350M last summer, the deal now sees the hosting provider from Manchester valued at £405 million (based on £25 million EBITDA). Read further.
“Growing a successful business is all about people. I am so proud of my management team and everyone who works at UKFast, when you think that they’ve grown this business from a spare bedroom in Manchester to where it is now. What’s even more incredible is the potential we have to take UKFast to new heights,” said Lawrence Jones, CEO and co-founder of UKFast.
Gaming Giant Ubisoft Buys Managed Hosting Company i3D.net
December 2018 – Ubisoft, the France-based global creator, publisher and distributor of popular games such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, For Honor, Just Dance, Watch Dogs, as well as Tom Clancy’s video game series, has acquired managed hosting provider i3D.net. Headquartered in the Netherlands, i3D.net serves many of the largest game developers and publishers worldwide. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. According to analysts the acquisition price would be somewhere between one hundred million and two hundred and fifty million euros. Read further.
“We are continuing to build our online operations in order to deliver games and services that strongly enhance our players’ experience. By adding i3D.net’s expertise and technologies to ours, we are leaping years’ ahead in our journey to deliver best in class service connectivity and performance to our players. i3D.net will continue to deliver state-of-the-art services to its clients and will benefit from our long-term support,” said Yves Guillemot, co-founder and CEO of Ubisoft.
Managed Hosting Provider ServerCentral Buys AWS Consulting Partner Turing Group
December 2018 – ServerCentral, a managed hosting infrastructure provider with services including colocation, IaaS, and managed cloud solutions, has acquired Turing Group – an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advanced Consulting Partner. The acquisition comes one year after ServerCentral made a minority investment in Turing Group. Read further.
“As a top AWS partner, our biggest challenge is keeping up with demand as more and more organizations want to move to the cloud. Joining forces with ServerCentral allows us to pursue new business much more aggressively while giving us the technical capabilities and expertise to provide whatever solution serves our clients best, whether that’s all AWS or a hybrid approach,” said Brendan Caulfield, chief revenue officer of ServerCentral Turing Group.
Hivelocity Announces Acquisition of Dallas IaaS Provider, Incero.com
November 2018 – Hivelocity, a Tampa, Florida-based provider of dedicated servers, cloud hosting, colocation and managed services, has announced the acquisition of Incero.com – a Dallas, Texas-based Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider with data centers located in Dallas, Seattle and New York City. Read further.
“Every one of our customers will benefit from the addition of our 9th, 10th and 11th data centers in what is now 7 highly strategic domestic markets. Soon, our new data centers in Dallas, Seattle and New York will be privately connected to our other data centers in Los Angeles, Miami, Tampa, Atlanta and New York City. This private connectivity between all of our data centers gives us the ability to maximize network performance and allows our customers to exchange data between geo-diverse solutions free, fast and securely,” said Steve Eschweiler, COO of Hivelocity.
EdgeConneX Expands in Europe, Acquires Linxdatacenter in Poland
November 2018 – EdgeConneX, a company specializing in global data center solutions at the edge of the network, has acquired Linxdatacenter’s facility in Warsaw, Poland. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Linxdatacenter is a global provider of “high-end” colocation, cloud and connectivity solutions for businesses. Linxdatacenter operates its data centers since 2001 and runs businesses in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and the Nordics. Read further.
“We are very excited to announce our expansion into Warsaw and to work with Linxdatacenter on a smooth transition to continue the high customer service levels already in place. As we continue to expand globally, we are prepared to meet the diverse needs of our customers to enable them to deliver the fastest and most reliable cloud, content, network and other services to their customers,” said Dick Theunissen, Managing Director, EMEA, EdgeConneX.
IBM Acquires Open Source Cloud Company Red Hat for $34 Billion
October 2018 – IBM has announced its acquisition of Red Hat, one of the world’s leading providers of open source cloud software. IBM will pay $190.00 per share in cash for Red Hat, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34 billion. Read further.
“The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market. IBM will become the world’s #1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Palo Alto Networks Completes Acquisition of Cloud Security Firm RedLock
October 2018 – Global cybersecurity solutions provider Palo Alto Networks has completed its acquisition of cloud threat defense company RedLock. Palo Alto Networks pays approximately $173 million in cash to buy this company. Read further.
“With the combination of RedLock and our existing cloud security offerings, we are well-positioned to solve our customers’ most difficult challenges of securing a mobile workforce, protecting the public cloud and stopping advanced threats. Since announcing the transaction, our integration planning teams have been working to combine the strengths of both companies in an effort to bring an integrated offering to market quickly,” said Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks.
Dutch Colocation Company The Datacenter Group Acquires Two Data Centers From Rabo Fund
September 2018 – The Datacenter Group (TDCG), a carrier- and cloud neutral colocation provider from the Netherlands, has acquired the two data centers of the Rabo Bouwfonds Communication Infrastructure Fund. TDCG now owns more than 20,000 m2 of server space and a data center capacity of 30 Megawatt in the cities of Amsterdam, Delft, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read further.
“It is extraordinary that we have grown this big among all the foreign giants and that we still manage to finance the growth with our own money. Our aim is to grow to a nationwide network of data centers in all regions of the Netherlands within a few years,” said Siemon van den Berg, co-founder and CEO of TDCG.
Cloud Services Provider GoDaddy Buys Blockchain Trademark Startup Cognate
September 2018 – Blockchain startup Cognate is joining GoDaddy, one of the world’s largest cloud services platforms dedicated to small, independent ventures. The two Cognate founders and their engineers say they’re going to be working hard with the GoDaddy team on future trademark and documentation management services. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Read further.
Cognate’s screenshot tool automatically captures proof of use from the website(s) where goods and/or services are sold. This would allow users to organize proof of use evidence for registrations, common law marks, and all other brand-related materials in one place.
Apple Mac Hosting Company MacStadium Buys Cloud Orchestration Software Company
September 2018 – MacStadium, a fast growing global provider of Apple Mac hosting, colocation, cloud hosting and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IAAS) solutions with currently around 20,000 dedicated servers hosted worldwide, has acquired specific assets of Atlanta-based software company, Virtual Command, including key personnel and intellectual property related to virtualization and cloud orchestration software. Read further.
“As the world becomes increasingly dependent on iOS and Mac apps, evidenced by the explosive growth in Apple’s App Store, we see an opportunity to build new product offerings that integrate with and extend popular DevOps tools. With this acquisition, we’re well positioned to accelerate the expansion of our platform by software enabling our unique infrastructure solutions for a wider set of iOS app, Mac app, and game developers around the world,” said Gregory McGraw, CEO of MacStadium.
Investment Company Behind Plesk, Oakley Capital, Buys cPanel
August 2018 – cPanel, the web hosting automation software platform well-known in the worldwide hosting industry, has been acquired by a group of investors led by Oakley Capital. The group also owns Plesk and SolusVM. Oakley Capital acquired Plesk in May 2017, while Plesk, in turn, acquired SolusVM, which supplies software for VPS management, among other things. Read further.
“This investment reflects a great step forward for cPanel. Our team has developed software that contributes to the success of millions of websites operating globally and looks forward to continuing to do so with the same passion that you, our loyal customers have come to love. This investment will give Internet infrastructure providers access to a wider range of software, features and support. I am excited about what the future holds for the company and the great team at cPanel,” said cPanel CEO Nick Koston.
Legrand Expands Its Data Center Solutions Portfolio With Acquisition of China-based PDU Provider
July 2018 – After acquiring rack PDU market leaders Raritan and Server Technology in 2015, listed company Legrand has announced another acquisition to bolster its data center solution offerings. As part of the company’s ongoing acquisition strategy, Legrand has acquired Shenzhen Clever Electronic Co., Ltd., a Chinese provider of Intelligent Power Distribution Units (PDUs) for data centers. Read further.
“Over the past several years we have grown both organically and through acquisitions to become the global leader in the data center white space. We are especially pleased to be recognized as a top data center technology supplier by 451 Research,” said Doug Fikse, President, Datacenter Power and Control Division, Legrand.
