Equinix Completes US$780 Million Acquisition of 13 Bell Data Centers in Canada
Highlights / Key Facts
Equinix's expansion acrossCanada unlocks opportunities for Canadian businesses expanding internationally and for multinational corporations pursuing growth and innovation in the Canadian market. Canadian companies can benefit from the ability to accelerate their evolution from traditional to digital businesses by rapidly scaling their infrastructure, easily adopting hybrid multicloud architectures and interconnecting with strategic business partners within the Platform Equinix® ecosystem of nearly 10,000 customers.Equinix now operates 15 high-quality International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers coast to coast inCanada . In addition to the twoToronto facilities (TR1 and TR2) thatEquinix has operated since 2010 and 2015 respectively, the company now operates four additional data centers inToronto (TR4, TR5, TR6, TR7), three inCalgary (CL1, CL2, CL3), and one in each of the following metros:Kamloops (KA1),Montreal (MT1),Ottawa (OT1)3,Saint John (SJ1),Vancouver (VA1) andWinnipeg (WI1).
Equinix plans to introduce Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric® (ECX Fabric®) in the new data centers. ECX Fabric is an on-demand, SDN-enabled interconnection service that allows any business to connect between its own distributed infrastructure and any other company's distributed infrastructure, including the world's largest network service and cloud providers, on Platform Equinix.Equinix and Bell have begun a strategic partnership that delivers industry-leading joint offers inCanada and globally. This partnership will enable enterprises inCanada to leverage integrated networking and hybrid multicloud services, both directly and indirectly through the shared partner communities ofEquinix and Bell, combining Bell's telecommunication services and technology expertise withEquinix's global platform of interconnected data centers and business ecosystems. This partnership also allowsEquinix to engage with Bell reseller partners to build stronger relationships with the Canadian channel ecosystem.Andrew Eppich has more than 20 years of experience in B2B technology and helping businesses digitally transform. Prior to joiningEquinix , he served for 13 years atHPE, Inc. inCanada in sales and channel leadership positions. While atEquinix , Eppich has led teams inCanada and theNortheastern U.S. , and he has most recently completed a two-year assignment inEurope leading teams in theUnited Kingdom andGermany .- The 13 acquired data centers are expected to generate approximately
US$112 million (CA$150 million) annualized revenue (Q4'20E LQA), which represents a purchase multiple of approximately 15x EV / adjusted EBITDA. The acquisition will be immediately accretive toEquinix's adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) per share, excluding integration costs. Equinix's global platform currently includes more than 220 data centers across 63 metros.- As a part of the transaction, more than 160 employees, primarily in the operations functions of the 13 acquired data centers, joined
Equinix effective today. - Citi and J.P. Morgan acted as financial advisors to
Equinix .
Quotes
Jon Lin , President,Americas ,Equinix :
"This acquisition complements and extendsEquinix's strategy of expanding our global platform and enhancing cloud and network density to offer enterprises a path to digital success. It also provides a unique opportunity forEquinix to expand its presence in theAmericas and positionsEquinix as a leading digital infrastructure provider inCanada . Further, it strengthens relationships with Canadian enterprises, many of which prefer local credentials and have multi-metro requirements, while enhancing relationships with global businesses looking to operate in the Canadian market."Jason Bremner , Research Vice President, IDC:
"Canada is the third largest economy in theAmericas , and the 10th largest in the world. It is also home to a thriving aggregation of multinational corporations that are seeking a clear and rapid migration path to digital transformation. We expect to see Canadian spending on digital transformation reachC$28 billion in 2020 with a growth rate of 7%, as companies look to accelerate their digital initiatives. This acquisition will offer both Canadian businesses and multinationals operating inCanada with a strong new option for building out and managing their digital infrastructure at key edge metros within the country."Siobhan Cox , Vice President of Marketing, Bell:
"As the first Equinix Platinum Partner inCanada , Bell is leveragingEquinix's world-class data centre operations and our leadership in network connectivity and cloud service innovation to enable the digital edge transformation of our customers' operations inCanada and around the globe. Bell is excited to build on our joint momentum, which is already providing major benefits for a large Canadian investment services customer in our shared community through a migration of IT infrastructure toEquinix to facilitate a new Open Stack environment."Rick McCalla , Vice President, Infrastructure, Index Exchange:
"At Index Exchange, we process billions of transactions a day on our ad exchange, managing incredibly large amounts of data along the way. Unsurprisingly, our physical servers play the most critical of roles in creating a seamless, low-latency user experience for our partners. Having worked withEquinix across the globe to deliver on this experience, we could not be more proud to continue our relationship back where we started:Canada ."Nancy McCuaig , Senior Vice President, Chief Technology and Data Officer, IGM Financial Inc.:
"IGM's partnership withEquinix has played an important role in our transformation journey and has provided us with a competitive edge. Our ability to stay connected to global markets through leveraging Platform Equinix has been critical to our success as a company. We're excited aboutEquinix's acquisition of additional data centres, as it will allow us to enhance connectivity both withinCanada and across the globe, and result in a better overall client and user experience."
Additional Resources
Equinix to Expand Canadian Operations withUS$750 Million Acquisition of 13 Bell Data Center Sites [press release]- Worldwide Colocation and Interconnection Services 2019-2020 Vendor Assessment [IDC report]
Equinix's Sustainability Progress -- IT Provider Corporate Responsibility Profile [IDC report]- Infrastructure Is Everywhere [Gartner report]
- Learn more about Platform Equinix [website]
About
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations discussed in such forward-looking statements, including statements related to the acquisition of data centers from Bell, the expected benefits from the acquisition, and the anticipated timing for closing of the
1 Note: includes the
2 This amount represents the foreign exchange spot rate as of
3 Note the
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SOURCE
Equinix Media Contact (Global), David Fonkalsrud, +1 650-598-6240, dfonkalsrud@equinix.com; Investor Relations Contacts, Katrina Rymill, +1 650-598-6583, krymill@equinix.com, or Chip Newcom, +1 650-598-6262, cnewcom@equinix.com