TierPoint Notches Another Data Center Acquisition

Making its third acquisition in weeks, St. Louis-based colocation provider TierPoint has reached agreement to buy a provider of cloud, colocation and managed services throughout the Midwest, TierPoint said Wednesday afternoon.

TierPoint said it would buy Omaha, Neb.-based Cosentry, No. 409 on CRN’s 2015 Solution Provider 500 list and a member of the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. for eight consecutive years.

Cosentry operates nine data centers in Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, South Dakota and Wisconsin -- five states where TierPoint does not have data centers.

[Related: Report: Verizon 'Starting Process' To Sell Off Data Center Business For $2.5 Billion]

Terms of the acquisition, which is expected to close in March, were not disclosed, according to a statement from TierPoint, a newcomer to last year’s CRN’s Solution Provider 500 list at No. 120.

Once the deal closes, TierPoint will operate 38 data centers in 24 U.S. markets, serving more than 6,000 customers, it said. It currently operates data centers in 13 other states from coast to coast.

As part of the transaction, Cosentry, which employs 220, will become a subsidiary of TierPoint and operate under the TierPoint brand. At that time, private equity firm TA Associates, which acquired Cosentry in 2011, will become a "significant investor" in TierPoint, joining six other investors, according to the TierPoint statement

"Cosentry is an excellent company with great people and this acquisition gives us a significant, strategic advantage in key Midwest markets, where there is an increasing demand for data center services," TierPoint Chairman and CEO Jerry Kent said in the statement. "We're also extremely pleased" about the investment by TA Associates, he added.

"The combination of TierPoint and Cosentry will bring economies of scale, which benefits our customers," Kent said.

In the same statement, Cosentry CEO Brad Hokamp said the acquisition will benefit Cosentry customers. "TierPoint can offer our customers an even more robust portfolio of cloud and managed services than we currently have available," giving customers more choices "to meet their growing business needs," he said.

The announcement comes a little more than a month after TierPoint acquired AlteredScale, a data center services provider in Chicago. A day later, TierPoint announced it had wrapped up its previously announced acquisition of Windstream Holdings' data center business for $575 million in cash. That deal included an ongoing, reciprocal agreement allowing each company to sell its products and services to the other's prospective customers.

PUBLISHED JAN. 20, 2016