Digital Realty acquires majority stake in Teraco

Teraco Data Environments has announced that San Francisco based Digital Realty has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Teraco from a consortium of investors, including Berkshire Partners and Permira. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions. Based in Johannesburg and established in 2008, Teraco is Africa’s largest data centre services provider. The company offers vendor-neutral colocation and other related services in secure and resilient data centres.

The company operates seven high-quality facilities with 75 megawatts of critical power load, serving more than 600 clients, including global Internet companies, across six core ecosystems – connectivity providers, managed service providers, cloud, content, enterprise and financial services. With more than 22,000 interconnects, Teraco’s data centres are the most interconnected facilities in Africa, allowing clients to connect directly to each other, to the onramps of all major cloud providers, as well as to the continent’s largest and fastest-growing Internet Exchange Point, NAPAfrica.

The Digital Realty transaction will result in a powerful combination providing Teraco continued access to capital to grow. The Teraco and NAPAfrica brands, which have a global reputation for exceptional service, quality, and client focus, will continue. Being backed by a global leader will enable Teraco to access skills and knowledge from the Digital Realty global platform and continue to grow the Teraco ecosystem.

Teraco Chief Executive Officer Jan Hnizdo said: “We are excited to enter our next chapter by joining forces with Digital Realty to create a truly global, scaled platform serving our customers in Africa and beyond. Our combined platform will be uniquely positioned to serve the full customer spectrum with the ability to support their growth around the world.  We look forward to working with the Digital Realty team to extend our state-of-the-art data centre and connectivity solutions to capitalise on the favourable industry trends and tremendous market opportunity.”

Digital Realty Chief Executive Officer A. William Stein added, “This highly strategic transaction immediately cements Digital Realty as the leading colocation provider in Africa, a region experiencing rapid digital transformation. Teraco is the industry leader in South Africa and the continent’s connectivity hub.  This investment will enhance our ability to serve customers on a global basis by adding a significant regional scale with a premier, network-dense portfolio in South Africa’s most strategically important metro areas.  Teraco will also advance our strategy of increasing exposure to highly connected, network- and carrier-dense facilities to enhance our global coverage and connectivity capabilities.”