STL adds more data centre expertise with IDS deal

STL has acquired data centre network infrastructure specialist Impact Data Solutions Group (IDS) as it looks to strengthen its position in the market. 

There has already been plenty of consolidation in the market this year and this latest deal will add to the growing list of firms that have looked to expansion via a deal as a way of gaining more grwoth. 

The firm is picking up a 100% stake in the privately-owned business, which has been valued at £12m, starting with an initial 80% stake, with the remaining 20% being added on an earn-out model, over the next few years. 

IDS has established a reputation specialising in providing the infrastructure for hyper-scale data centres and works with two of the four largest global cloud players. The firm has a pan-European presence, with offices in London and the Netherlands and operates with an ecosystem of partners.  

“It is our endeavor to be more and more relevant to our customers’ data network creation needs across the globe. The massive growth in data transmission and high bandwidth applications are driving a large need for edge compute and localised data centre, which makes this an extremely attractive space for investment,” said Dr. Anand Agarwal, Group CEO STL. 

He said that the management team at IDS had established the business and it would be adding more expertise to the business with the acquisition. 

"Making this acquisition extremely well aligned to our stated strategy of strengthening our solutions to our Cloud Provider customer segment, and taking our Network Services Business global,” said Agarwal. 

Ben Parker, IDS CEO, said that by combining forces with STL it gave the business the chance to lean on more resources. 

“Joining the STL global platform will enable us to fast track our expansion with the quality, scale and breadth of competencies needed to meet our customers’ complex design and deployment requirements," he said. 

Elsewhere in the data centre infrastructure and networking world Company85, which was acquired by Telstra in 2017, has rebranded as Telstra Purple. 

The firm will continue to provide data centre, security and networking managed services and the rebrand is designed to pull together Telstra’s acquired entities under a single banner: VMTech, MSC, Readify, Kloud, Bridgepoint, O2, NSC, and the UK’s Company85.  

“We want to be able to better address the needs of our customers around the world by bringing our acquired entities and technology services capabilities together, but we also wanted to maintain the unique culture of each company,” said Michael Ebeid, group executive, Telstra Enterprise. 

 “We did not want to unpick what has made them successful as individual companies and Telstra Purple gives us the structure to nurture their differences and build on the strengths of each team within an agile organisational construct,” he added “Telstra Purple brings together our technology services teams under a single banner to help our customers get the most from their technology investments.” 

Telstra Purple will operate in The UK as well as Australia, Singapore and out of  Hong Kong with a staff of 1,500 people working on more than 8,000 projects globally.