DIVERSIFICATION VS THE CORE BUSINESS : “ THE GREAT SELL-OFF ”
TECHNOLOGY
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“ They were getting their tushes handed to them by the Equinixes , Digital Realtys and RagingWires of the world , and they backed out ”
— Doug Adams , CEO , RagingWire Data Centres
major telecom operator , seeing as they support the company ’ s own needs and create additional diversified revenue streams through colocation and managed services . For the past ten years , this has been the prevailing attitude . Some time in the last three years , however , the industry ’ s perspective has started to change .
DIVERSIFICATION VS THE CORE BUSINESS : “ THE GREAT SELL-OFF ”
In October of last year , Telecom Italia , one of the country ’ s largest mobile operators , announced that it was planning to spin off 23 of its data centres and list them on the stock market . This announcement - far from being a freak occurrence - is part of a much larger trend . At the tail end of 2017 , CenturyLink acquired American telecom company Level 3 Communications in a $ 34bn merger . Before the ink on the merger agreement was dry , CenturyLink announced it was selling 57 of its new data centres and its colocation business to several investment funds advised by BC Partners , in a deal to the tune of $ 2.2bn . In that same year , Verizon announced it was sloughing
SEPTEMBER 2020