Equinix, Inc. has announced that it has completed a cash tender offer and has acquired approximately 97% of the equity interests (including stock options) of Bit-isle, Inc. Equinix will begin reporting consolidated financials as of November 2nd, and will acquire the remaining shares of Bit-isle by the end of 2015.
The acquisition of Bit-isle further strengthens Equinix's position in Asia-Pacific — the company's fastest growing region — improving the company's market position in Japan, and helping to meet growing demand for interconnection among Japanese businesses. Equinix gains five data centers in Tokyo and one in Osaka in close proximity to the existing Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX®) data centers in Japan, creating campus-like environments well-suited for customers' future expansion needs. With the acquisition of Bit-isle's six facilities, Platform Equinix™ now includes 111 data centers in 33 markets around the world. "For several years Equinix has been evaluating how to accelerate our leadership in this market. Bit-isle facilities are adjacent to our carrier dense sites in downtown Tokyo, giving us customer-ready capacity as well as the opportunity to scale Platform Equinix in this increasingly constrained, but important global market," Steve Smith, president and CEO, Equinix.
Originally announced on September 8, 2015, the acquisition of Bit-isle increases Equinix's scale and creates the fourth largest data center operator in Japan(1). After the completion of Equinix's TY5 data center in Tokyo in Q1 2016, Equinix will have a total of 10 data centers in Tokyo and two in Osaka.
Japan is one of the world's largest colocation markets and Equinix Japan has the highest mix of interconnection revenue in the company's APAC region. In a recent global survey of more than 1,000 IT decision makers2 from 14 countries including Japan, the number one business priority for nearly half of the survey respondents is to increase revenue, and interconnection was at the core of all the strategies cited as key to achieving this goal. Furthermore, of the enterprises already deploying interconnection strategies, more than one-third are reaping a total value of more than $10 million from revenue gains and cost savings.
According to Bloomberg, four of the five fastest growing economies in the world are located in Asia-Pacific3. As the region continues to boom it will be increasingly important for businesses to be able to scale their IT needs to meet demand and enter new markets. The acquisition of Bit-isle will increase Platform Equinix from 21 to 27 data centers throughout Asia-Pacific, including in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore, and to 33 markets around the world.
Bit-isle adds data center capacity in close proximity to Equinix's carrier dense sites that Equinix can leverage to continue to scale its global interconnection platform. The acquired data centers can be tethered to existing Equinix IBX data centers for campus connectivity to network and cloud service providers, business ecosystems and other enterprises within a metropolitan area.
Prior to the acquisition Equinix already served 1,300+ customers in Asia-Pacific including 350+ networks and 390+ cloud and IT service providers. Bit-isle complements Equinix's cloud and network service provider customer base with a strong Japanese enterprise and systems integrator customer base, including some of Japan's largest companies, while also adding strong local expertise to help drive Equinix's success in Japan.
