Next Generation Data has agreed to be acquired by US-based Vantage Data Centers for an undisclosed amount.
Vantage Data Centers is eager to expand its European footprint, with the Next Generation Data site in Newport, Wales, representing its sixth region in the market. It initially opened five new centres in the region earlier this year, with those being in Berlin, Frankfurt, Milan, Warsaw and Zurich.
This isn’t the first time Next Generation Data has been on the verge of being acquired, as late last year it was rumoured that Legal & General were interested in acquiring the company for £200 million. Nothing eventually came of that deal, but it did open the door for Vantage’s acquisition.
This acquisition will provide Vantage customers with access to Europe’s largest data centre campus totaling 180MW, including an existing 72MW facility and 108MW of expansion capacity. The NGD campus is in the Cardiff Capital Region in South Wales, which includes the Welsh capital, and is the region’s economic hub.
Located on 50-acres, the existing NGD data centre is a Tier III facility using 100% renewable energy. The facility has fiber delivered by many Tier 1 service providers, offering customers low latency between Wales and London of less than 1.5 milliseconds. In addition, NGD Cloud Gateway provides multiple access services, including Express Route and Connect, and NGD recently became a new hosting facility for LINX Wales. The highly secure site meets the UK government’s highest standards, and multiple blue-chip, high growth companies currently house their IT infrastructure within NGD’s facility.
NGD’s CEO Justin Jenkins will join Vantage as president, Vantage, UK, once the acquisition closes. At NGD since its founding in 2007, Jenkins previously served as the company’s CTO and COO before being named CEO in 2018. He has also held leadership roles at Sony Computer Entertainment and several start-up technology companies.
“As the needs of our hyperscale, cloud and large enterprise customers continue to grow, Wales represents a highly attractive U.K. market offering both lower cost and greater scalability versus London,” said Sureel Choksi, president and CEO, Vantage Data Centers.
“NGD customers benefit from very low network latency to London, low power costs and excellent fiber connectivity, coupled with the company’s massively scalable campus outside London’s highly constrained M25 area. We are thrilled to welcome Justin Jenkins and the entire NGD team to Vantage Europe.”
“The NGD team is excited to join Vantage Europe given our shared commitment to operational excellence, high quality facilities and sustainable building practices,” added Jenkins.
“Vantage’s global footprint and broad customer relationships, combined with NGD’s growing hyperscale and enterprise UK customer base, position us ideally to accelerate the investment and growth of our U.K. business.”
The transaction will be funded with equity commitments from Digital Colony Partners and other investors in Vantage, as well as acquisition debt financing.
