Equinix Completes US$780 Million Acquisition of 13 Bell Data Centers in Canada
Equinix, the world’s digital infrastructure company, announced the completion of its acquisition of 13 data centers1 in Canada and their operations from BCE Inc. (“Bell”). The US$780 million2 (CA$1,041 million) all-cash transaction includes more than 600 customers, of which more than 500 are new to Equinix, and approximately 1.2 million gross square feet of data center space. The deal solidifies Equinix’s position as a leading digital infrastructure provider in Canada, enabling Canadian businesses, as well as multinationals with a presence in Canada, to leverage a trusted platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure to power their success.
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Equinix also announced that Andrew Eppich, a six-year veteran of Equinix originally from Toronto, has been appointed Managing Director, Canada. In this role, Eppich will be responsible for defining Equinix’s strategic vision to: develop the enterprise market; deliver a strong network of prospects, customers and channel partners; provide thought leadership to accelerate new business and revenue growth; and expand Equinix’s role as a trusted advisor to companies as they expand their digital infrastructure.
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Highlights / Key Facts
- Equinix’s expansion across Canada 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 in Canada. In addition to the two Toronto facilities (TR1 and TR2) that Equinix has operated since 2010 and 2015 respectively, the company now operates four additional data centers in Toronto (TR4, TR5, TR6, TR7), three in Calgary (CL1, CL2, CL3), and one in each of the following metros: Kamloops (KA1), Montreal (MT1), Ottawa (OT1)3, Saint John (SJ1), Vancouver (VA1) and Winnipeg (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 in Canada and globally. This partnership will enable enterprises in Canada to leverage integrated networking and hybrid multicloud services, both directly and indirectly through the shared partner communities of Equinix and Bell, combining Bell’s telecommunication services and technology expertise with Equinix’s global platform of interconnected data centers and business ecosystems. This partnership also allows Equinix 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 joining Equinix, he served for 13 years at HPE, Inc. in Canada in sales and channel leadership positions. While at Equinix, Eppich has led teams in Canada and the Northeastern U.S., and he has most recently completed a two-year assignment in Europe leading teams in the United Kingdom and Germany.
- 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 to Equinix’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.
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