Pulsant Buys Onyx For Northern Data Centre Expansion

Reading-based cloud and managed hosting provider Pulsant has bought out data centre provider Onyx for an undisclosed sum, the company announced today.

Pulsant now gets access to Onyx’s data centre facilities in Newcastle, Sheffield, Edinburgh, and Glasgow as the firm vies to strengthen its market position.

The company’s staff, technology platforms and infrastructure will be integrated with Pulsant’s over the coming months.

Pulsant said that the combined business will have almost 400 staff, revenues of £75 million and over 4,000 customers in various industries.

Neil Stephenson, CEO of Onyx, said that the deal had been in the pipeline for some time.

Strong

“We have known Pulsant for many years and always felt that combining Onyx and Pulsant would provide a very strong UK-wide player,” he said.

“Both businesses have complementary capabilities and locations, and this acquisition enables the enlarged business to offer a stronger, broader range of services to our joint customers. The cultures of our two organisations are also very similar, which was a big factor in selecting Pulsant as the acquirer.”

According to The Register last month, Pulsant agreed to pay £65 million for Onyx, citing several sources.

The acquisition will add to Pulsant’s capabilities as a provider of hybrid IT services — particularly in the areas of applications management, remote and on-site managed services, workplace recovery and security — and expand its reach in the UK to deliver more options for resiliency and a stronger portfolio of solutions to customers, Pulsant said.

The company has also appointed a new chairman. Mike Tobin, OBE, was previously CEO at Telecity for 13 years, overseeing its growth from a market cap of £6m to £1.6bn, and floating it on the London Stock Exchange in 2007.

Pulsant CEO Mark Howling said: “Mike has an excellent reputation in the industry, a broad understanding of the datacentre and cloud markets and experience of growing businesses in the UK and overseas. I am delighted that he has agreed to become our chairman, which is a significant signal of Pulsant’s quality and ambitions.”

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