Dec 26, 2005 : European Acquisitions Big in 2005
📅 - Like its North American cousin, the Web hosting industry in Europe saw a spate of mergers and acquisitions this year. While the continent's largest player continued its quest for greater market share, data center expansions continued with notable action in some emerging markets.
The largest host in Europe, and the world, 1&1 Internet (oneandone.com 👉 Total Reviews: 1
🙌 Average Rating: 1 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 0
👎 Bad Reviews: 1
👈 Official Responses: 0) continued with its aggressive and sometimes unorthodox ways. In March, the company's UK arm began offering a package including domain name and six free months of hosting with no obligations to small businesses. The promotion harkened back to the promotional three-years of hosting offered by 1&1 prior to its US launch in 2004. That deal landed the company hundreds of thousands of customers amid a swirl of controversy and the latest promotion appears to have had similarly successful and somewhat less controversial results. At the end of August, the company said 35,000 new customers had signed up during the two-month promotion. 1&1's aggressive marketing tactics have propelled it to the top of the European Web hosting industry. But the company has managed to grow organically and remains on the sidelines while the rest of the industry continues to buy and sell assets at a rapid pace.
Early in the year, emerging hosting player Pipex Communications (pipex.com) followed last year's acquisitions of Host Europe and Hildram by picking up DonHost, a provider of domain names, shared, dedicated and reseller hosting. Donhost's 120,000 hosted domains brought Pipex's total past 1 million.
A pan-European Web host Active 24 (active24.co.uk 👉 Total Reviews: 2
🙌 Average Rating: 1 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 0
👎 Bad Reviews: 2
👈 Official Responses: 0), based in Norway, put its aggressive acquisition strategy in place with the purchases of Sweden's Loopia, Poland's Cybernetix and the Czech Republic's CP Online.
In the telecom and enterprise hosting space, UK-based Cable & Wireless (cw.net) emerged from a period of relative inactivity and significantly expanded its Web hosting capabilities with the purchase of managed and application hosting provider Energis for $1.08 billion. The deal includes Energis's four hosting data centers - two facilities in Leeds, one in Walford and one in Dublin, Ireland - that cover 213,000 total square feet. The deal was C&W's first significant move in hosting since the sale of its US hosting arm to SAVVIS in early 2004.
Europe's colocation market was further consolidated with TeleCity's (telecity.com) November acquisition of its main rival Redbus Interhouse. The deal expands TeleCity's data center footprint considerably, bringing its facility count to 16. Perhaps most importantly, the merger reshapes the top of the European colocation market, leaving only IXEurope (ixeurope.com) and Interxion (interxion.com) as TeleCity's remaining rivals. While buying up assets to eliminate competition was at least part of the motivation for the C&W and TeleCity buys, acquisition was used by Terremark (terremark.com 👉 Total Reviews: 3
🙌 Average Rating: 1 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 0
👎 Bad Reviews: 3
👈 Official Responses: 0) to expand its overall service offerings.
Miami-based Terremark, which has focused largely on pure-play colocation, bought Danish managed hosting specialist Dedigate in order to help it move up the stack on the managed services food chain. In one case, the sale of a hosting company even sparked a wave of labor unrest.
In April, Claranet (clara.net) reached a deal to acquire all of Via Net.Works's operations, including its European and US divisons, and the PSINet Europe and Amen Group assets acquired by Via in 2004. News of the deal set off strike action at Amen's locations in France and Spain, with employees upset over the lack of information about their job status and the exclusion of Amen in the deal-making process. The Claranet deal was supposed to have closed in April but dragged on through the summer. In July, Via sold its US, Dutch and Portuguese operations to Claranet for $9.3 million. The deal also included Via's Amen businesses.
A subsequent deal to sell Via's PSINet Europe assets and legacy operations in France, Spain and German to Claranet was cancelled in August. This opened the door for UK-based Interoute (interoute.com) to step in and acquire the assets that Claranet was slated to buy, which included all Via's operations in Spain, France and Germany, as well as its PSINet Europe operations in Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Switzerland.
In March, a report published by UK-based consultancy Broadgroup (broad-group.com) found data center space in London nearing full capacity, making it difficult for companies to enter the market and build out new facilities. The report suggested that a result of the situation would be a jump in business for key European locations such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris. The moves of some of the continent's leading colocation providers this year lend some credibility to the argument.
IXEurope bought a new data center in Frankfurt, Germany and announced it would open a third facility in London only after acquiring a site that it would have to convert into a data center facility. TeleCity's merger with Redbus Interhouse expanded its service delivery capabilities in the three markets, and while Interxion did not expand its footprint in these locations, it did add 900 square meters of space to its facility in Vienna, Austria.
Meanwhile, California's Hurricane Electric (he.net 👉 Total Reviews: 1
🙌 Average Rating: 10 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 1
👎 Bad Reviews: 0
👈 Official Responses: 0) expanded its connection to the Amsterdam Internet Exchange and Digital Realty Trust (digitalrealtytrust.com) bought several of data center facilities in Western European locations including Amsterdam and Mainz, Germany near Frankfurt. The wave of mergers this year, many of which included high-profile companies, showed that the consolidation process is still playing itself out across the Atlantic. And as the London market moves closer to full capacity, data center operators and Web hosts may have to start looking into other emerging European markets to accommodate future expansion.
The largest host in Europe, and the world, 1&1 Internet (oneandone.com 👉 Total Reviews: 1
🙌 Average Rating: 1 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 0
👎 Bad Reviews: 1
👈 Official Responses: 0) continued with its aggressive and sometimes unorthodox ways. In March, the company's UK arm began offering a package including domain name and six free months of hosting with no obligations to small businesses. The promotion harkened back to the promotional three-years of hosting offered by 1&1 prior to its US launch in 2004. That deal landed the company hundreds of thousands of customers amid a swirl of controversy and the latest promotion appears to have had similarly successful and somewhat less controversial results. At the end of August, the company said 35,000 new customers had signed up during the two-month promotion. 1&1's aggressive marketing tactics have propelled it to the top of the European Web hosting industry. But the company has managed to grow organically and remains on the sidelines while the rest of the industry continues to buy and sell assets at a rapid pace.
Early in the year, emerging hosting player Pipex Communications (pipex.com) followed last year's acquisitions of Host Europe and Hildram by picking up DonHost, a provider of domain names, shared, dedicated and reseller hosting. Donhost's 120,000 hosted domains brought Pipex's total past 1 million.
A pan-European Web host Active 24 (active24.co.uk 👉 Total Reviews: 2
🙌 Average Rating: 1 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 0
👎 Bad Reviews: 2
👈 Official Responses: 0), based in Norway, put its aggressive acquisition strategy in place with the purchases of Sweden's Loopia, Poland's Cybernetix and the Czech Republic's CP Online.
In the telecom and enterprise hosting space, UK-based Cable & Wireless (cw.net) emerged from a period of relative inactivity and significantly expanded its Web hosting capabilities with the purchase of managed and application hosting provider Energis for $1.08 billion. The deal includes Energis's four hosting data centers - two facilities in Leeds, one in Walford and one in Dublin, Ireland - that cover 213,000 total square feet. The deal was C&W's first significant move in hosting since the sale of its US hosting arm to SAVVIS in early 2004.
Europe's colocation market was further consolidated with TeleCity's (telecity.com) November acquisition of its main rival Redbus Interhouse. The deal expands TeleCity's data center footprint considerably, bringing its facility count to 16. Perhaps most importantly, the merger reshapes the top of the European colocation market, leaving only IXEurope (ixeurope.com) and Interxion (interxion.com) as TeleCity's remaining rivals. While buying up assets to eliminate competition was at least part of the motivation for the C&W and TeleCity buys, acquisition was used by Terremark (terremark.com 👉 Total Reviews: 3
🙌 Average Rating: 1 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 0
👎 Bad Reviews: 3
👈 Official Responses: 0) to expand its overall service offerings.
Miami-based Terremark, which has focused largely on pure-play colocation, bought Danish managed hosting specialist Dedigate in order to help it move up the stack on the managed services food chain. In one case, the sale of a hosting company even sparked a wave of labor unrest.
In April, Claranet (clara.net) reached a deal to acquire all of Via Net.Works's operations, including its European and US divisons, and the PSINet Europe and Amen Group assets acquired by Via in 2004. News of the deal set off strike action at Amen's locations in France and Spain, with employees upset over the lack of information about their job status and the exclusion of Amen in the deal-making process. The Claranet deal was supposed to have closed in April but dragged on through the summer. In July, Via sold its US, Dutch and Portuguese operations to Claranet for $9.3 million. The deal also included Via's Amen businesses.
A subsequent deal to sell Via's PSINet Europe assets and legacy operations in France, Spain and German to Claranet was cancelled in August. This opened the door for UK-based Interoute (interoute.com) to step in and acquire the assets that Claranet was slated to buy, which included all Via's operations in Spain, France and Germany, as well as its PSINet Europe operations in Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Switzerland.
In March, a report published by UK-based consultancy Broadgroup (broad-group.com) found data center space in London nearing full capacity, making it difficult for companies to enter the market and build out new facilities. The report suggested that a result of the situation would be a jump in business for key European locations such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris. The moves of some of the continent's leading colocation providers this year lend some credibility to the argument.
IXEurope bought a new data center in Frankfurt, Germany and announced it would open a third facility in London only after acquiring a site that it would have to convert into a data center facility. TeleCity's merger with Redbus Interhouse expanded its service delivery capabilities in the three markets, and while Interxion did not expand its footprint in these locations, it did add 900 square meters of space to its facility in Vienna, Austria.
Meanwhile, California's Hurricane Electric (he.net 👉 Total Reviews: 1
🙌 Average Rating: 10 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 1
👎 Bad Reviews: 0
👈 Official Responses: 0) expanded its connection to the Amsterdam Internet Exchange and Digital Realty Trust (digitalrealtytrust.com) bought several of data center facilities in Western European locations including Amsterdam and Mainz, Germany near Frankfurt. The wave of mergers this year, many of which included high-profile companies, showed that the consolidation process is still playing itself out across the Atlantic. And as the London market moves closer to full capacity, data center operators and Web hosts may have to start looking into other emerging European markets to accommodate future expansion.
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Company: OneAndOne
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