IXEurope’s ambitious Frankfurt Expansion

October 2005

 

Leading industry deal maker IXEurope has announced their fifth and most stunning acquisition to date of the former Digiplex Frankfurt data centre, a facility capable of offering 56, 600 sq m (over 600,000 sq feet) of space, though with an immediate capacity of 6000 sq m of fitted out space.  This is the company’s second data centre deal in Frankfurt, having acquired their existing 2500 sq m facility located in the centre of town in 2000 and also follows on from their purchase in May this year of Gesellschaft für Informationstechnologie und Consulting mbH (GIC mbH) who provide business continuity services to financial and enterprise clients in the region for customers such as Merrill Lynch.  IXEurope also have a 3000 sq m facility in Dusseldorf. 

 

To put this deal in context IXEurope’s current gross data centre portfolio across their 8 other facilities is just under 30, 000 sq m and this is also their first freehold acquisition.  The facility was originally opened in June 2001 following the completion of a €60m fit-out and the initial tenants were Digiplex backers iaxis and Carrier1, both of whom went under in the industry downturn and so in turn did Digiplex.  The site was then acquired by two Dutch investors who ran the site as CCF, Colocation Centre Frankfurt and who are rumored to have offered some extremely aggressive deals in the market and were successful in attracting two significant tenants, being the Deutsche Bourse and GZS (a payment transaction company) according to industry sources and this transaction is accompanied with an as yet unknown third tenant.   IX Europe reckons the facility will cost them, including some upgrade costs, some €14m. 

 

The site comprises the main facility and two further office buildings. The 36,800m2 main facility has the immediate data centre space with further expansion possible. Office and recovery space of up to 4,250m2 is also available on the site both within the main building and within a 6-storey office building on-campus and IXEurope will doubtless be keen that GIC will take advantage of this.  The Frankfurt market, especially compared to London, has ample supply of large scale data centre space and currently offers some 120,000 sq m of space from 10 facilities from 9 operators, according to figures from The Colocation Exchange.  The IXEurope acquisition may be the cause of some relief to the local market in that an ultra-aggressive vendor has been removed from the scene; on the other hand IX will doubtless also be keen to continue to grow their client list. 

 

Tim Anker

The Colocation Exchange

(This item has also appeared in the November edition of Data Centre News)