One pan European data center platform

NTT Communications acquires 100% of Gyron and will integrate it with e-shelter

Significant move creates a pan European platform, in first step to align its data center businesses

London, UK – July 25, 2018 – e-shelter and Gyron, leading data center providers in Europe, and their parent company NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), the information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and international communications business within the NTT Group (TO: 9432), announced today that NTT Com has exercised its option to purchase the remaining 15% shares of Gyron Internet Limited (Gyron), from the founders, Robin Balen and Ben Miller, and now owns 100% of the company.

In May 2012, NTT Com acquired an 85% equity stake in Gyron and since this time, with the financial backing of NTT Com, Gyron has experienced exponential growth, and now operates 49MW of capacity across 5 data centers in Hemel Hempstead and Slough.

As part of this latest investment, NTT Com has now begun a process to integrate Gyron with e-shelter, its EMEA data center platform that it acquired in 2015. Rupprecht Rittweger, CEO of e-shelter and leader of NTT Com Data Centers in EMEA, has now also become CEO of Gyron and will create a unified operating structure for the two businesses. Robin Balen has stepped down as CEO and has assumed an advisory role to help with the integration process whilst Ben Miller continues as COO.

“I want to thank Robin and Ben who have built a great business over the last 18 years, with a fantastic team of people.” said Rittweger. “Our combined platform is now uniquely positioned to meet the needs of large enterprises and hyperscale cloud companies that require data center capacity across our network of 15 European locations and over 400MW of colocation capacity. This integration further strengthens our market position in Europe and provides a strong base for further growth into both existing and new markets as we continue to expand to service customer demands.”

Gyron and e-shelter have already been working together for the last 12 months on a new UK data center campus in Dagenham. The scheme is now awaiting planning permission to enable work to start and will be capable of up to 24,000 sqm IT space and 60MW IT load once fully developed. When connected to the existing Gyron data centers this will create a networked platform across London, with over 100MW of IT capacity.

“We are excited to expand both our investment in Gyron and in the London data center market,” said Masaaki Moribayashi, Senior Executive Vice President and a Board Member for NTT Com. “Since joining the NTT Com family of companies, both e-shelter and Gyron have enjoyed great success and the decision to bring these two successful companies together will help to accelerate our plans to create one operating platform across Europe."

Source: e-shelter