Interoute Plans Data Centre Expansion With Private Equity Funding

UK cloud provider Interoute is looking to aggressively expand its data centre network across Europe, bringing on board private equity investors to help bankroll cloud acquisitions both here and in the US.

The Telecommunications company, based out of Canary Wharf, is one of Europe’s largest cloud services platform providers, with networks spread out across the continent, North America, the Middle East and Africa.

The private equity firms in question are UK-based Aleph Capital Partners and Crestview Partners, a US firm which was founded by former Goldman Sachs staff. The companies have agreed to buy a 30 percent stake Interoute.

The investment value has not been disclosed, but Reuters reported that Aleph is chartered for investments worth 100 million to 400 million euros.

Predator

In an interview with Reuters, Interoute CEO Gareth Williams said: “This change in the shareholder structure means that instead of being considered potential prey, we can now turn to being one of the predators.”

Interoute currently runs over 67,000 km of fibre, 12 data centres, 13 virtual data centres and 31 colocation centres, with connections to 195 additional third-party data centres across Europe. The privately held company is majority owned by the Swiss Sandoz Family Foundation. Completion is expected to occur by the end of April 2015.

Williams said in a press release: “Interoute seeks to more than double its revenues in the next 5 years, underpinned by demand for its enterprise networked cloud services. Adding new markets, capabilities and additional customers to experience these services will be the focus of the acquisitions. We are thrilled to have found ambitious tech-savvy partners who want to help us reach that goal”.

The investment from Aleph and Crestview is a share purchase deal to buy out Emirates Telecommunications, which is a shareholder in the company.

Hugues Lepic, CEO of Aleph Capital, said: “Interoute is already a leader in the European fibre and cloud infrastructure market, but with our help there are opportunities for the company to enter a new and exciting phase. We are looking forward to working closely with the Interoute management team and the Sandoz Family Foundation to achieve this.”

In 2013, it was alleged that Interoute, along with firms BT, Vodafone, and Level 3, passed on users’ information to British cybersecurity organisation GCHQ. The secret project, codenamed Tempora, is said to have seen GCHQ tap fibre optic cables to store massive amounts of data without user consent.

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