DWS, a global asset management company, announced plans to merge The Datacenter Group (TDCG) and NLDC to become the largest independent data center provider in the Netherlands. DWS’s infrastructure business has bought NLDC from KPN earlier this year. It has now also taken a majority stake in TDCG. Both acquisitions are on behalf of DWS’ European infrastructure fund. They have not revealed financial details of the deal.
“We are delighted to make these investments in TDCG and NLDC. Both companies have high-quality and geographically diverse assets, providing an attractive co-location offering. The new combination is excellently positioned to support clients. We look forward to working with all employees of the new company to enable its further growth,” said Hamish Mackenzie, Head of Infrastructure at DWS.
The merger, which will be completed in the coming months, will see the emergence of a leading national player in the Dutch market, serving corporates, government, cloud and IT-providers, and enterprises. Together, TDCG and NLDC have a total of 10 datacenters in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft, Utrecht, Groningen, and Eindhoven. These locations cover nearly 50,000 m² and have 65 MW of power capacity.
“The two companies know the world of the colocation, connectivity as well as private and public cloud well. We deliver co-location directly to end-users such as hospitals, schools, municipalities, ministries and companies and indirect via system integrators. This positions our companies well to offer independent advice about the best route to the hybrid cloud,” said Claartje Mangert, managing director of NLDC.
Siemon van den Berg, founder, and CEO of TDCG, will retain a minority stake in the merged company and will continue to support its strategic development as a member of the supervisory board. The other founder of TDCG, Ali Niknam, has sold his shares to DWS.
In another development, TDCG has acquired the data center infrastructure of NovoServe in Doetinchem and Enschede, in the eastern part of the Netherlands. The merger is significant as the demand for both public as well as private cloud is overgrowing. By selling its two data centers, Infrastructure-as-a-Service hosting provider NovoServe can apply focus to their international IaaS hosting activities, while TDCG expands its regional coverage.
