Japanese telecoms giant NTT has agreed to acquire an 86.7% stake in German data centre operator e-shelter, becoming Europe’s third-largest provider.
NTT, which will make the purchase via subsidiary NTT Communications, did not disclose the deal value,…
Japanese telecoms giant NTT has agreed to acquire an 86.7% stake in German data centre operator e-shelter, becoming Europe’s third-largest provider.
NTT, which will make the purchase via subsidiary NTT Communications, did not disclose the deal value, but various media reports have put it at about Y100bn (US$836m).
Founded in 2000, e-shelter manages nearly 90,000 square metres of data centre space in four major German cities – Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich – as well as in Vienna, Austria and Zurich, Switzerland. Its main site in Frankfurt, at about 60,000 square metres, is Europe’s largest.
NTT, which already operates data centres in the UK, France and Germany, said the deal will strengthen its ability to meet growing demand for data centre and cloud services in Europe and provide more efficient services to migrate customer systems to the cloud.
According to research firm Gartner, the EU data centre market is growing at 9% per year.
NTT Com president and CEO Akira Amira described e-shelter as a growing company with high-quality data centre capabilities, adding that his team is impressed by its ability to maintain a leading position in the competitive EU market.
“We look forward to expanding our share to the EU’s overall ICT market in partnership with this potent company,” he said.
Meanwhile, e-shelter CEO Rupprecht Rittweger noted that, as the company’s customers expand beyond EU borders, they are looking for “globally seamless” ICT solutions.
“We believe that the best way to ensure e-shelter’s growth and development is in partnership with NTT Com, which has a commanding presence in Asia and is a leading provider of ICT services worldwide.”
German real estate developer Investa Holding, in which Rittweger has a controlling interest, will retain a significant minority stake in e-shelter. Investa currently owns 51% of e-shelter shares, while the remainder are held by private equity firm Abry Partners.
NTT, which operates more than 130 data centres internationally, will provide more than half of e-shelter’s board of directors.
The agreement follows last month’s announcement last month that UK-based data centre provider Telecity Group had inked a non-binding US$2.2bn deal to merge with New York-listed UK competitor InterXion Holding.
Telehouse, another top data centre provide in Europe, is also owned by a Japanese telco – KDDI.
