
Abry sells E-shelter to NTT Communications
Boston-based Abry Partners has agreed to sell its minority stake in German data centre operator E-shelter to NTT Communications.
The trade sale will see Abry, a minority shareholder in E-shelter since 2011, divest the 49% stake it currently holds in the business alongside a number of other minority backers.
Meanwhile, German real estate developer Investa Holding, which controlled the remainder of the business prior to the sale, will retain a 13.3% stake. Investa is owned by, among others, E-shelter founder and CEO Rupprecht Rittweger.
NTT Communications will secure an 86.7% stake. Although the price to be paid by the telecommunications group remains confidential, press reports place it around the €742m mark.
The transaction will see it absorb E-shelter's 90,000 square meters of data centre space in Europe. Distributed across Zurich, Vienna and four German cities, these include Europe's largest data storage infrastructure in Frankfurt.
Combined with NTT Communications' existing facilities, they could lead to the creation of Europe's third biggest actor in the data centre sector, according to the group.
The company's new shareholders foresee growth for data centres in Europe as, according to statistics from Gartner's, the segment has experienced an annual 9% uptick for the past few years.
Company
Founded in 2000 by Rupprecht Rittweger, E-shelter is an operator of data centres in Europe. The company currently manages data centres representing 90,000 square meters and distributed across Frankfurt, where the main facilities are located, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna and Zurich.
People
NTT Communications was represented by CEO Akira Arima. Rupprecht Rittwege is CEO of E-shelter.
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