Eurofiber buys Netherlands colocation player Dataplace

Networking specialist Eurofiber Group has bought all of the shares in Dutch colocation provider Dataplace, and in the process gains its second data centre. Eurofiber will take ownership of the tier III facility in Alblasserdam, western Netherlands.

Its existing data centre is in Utrecht. Under the terms of the deal, Dataplace founder Gerben van der Veen takes over the management of all of Eurofiber’s data centre businesses. He said: “Eurofiber has a finely meshed fiber-optic network in the Benelux countries. Almost every data centre is connected to it. Joining forces with Eurofiber ensures that we will be in an even better position to serve our clients to the utmost.”

Alex Goldblum, CEO of Eurofiber Group, said: “We are enthusiastic about this transaction. Over the past five years Dataplace has been successful in marketing a regional colocation proposition. This proposition is a good match for the trend among companies and institutions towards outsourcing hardware and IT to a secure data centre environment.

“From the data centre secure and high quality fibre optic connections can be made to IT and cloud partners. For Eurofiber this is a logical step towards an open data infrastructure into which IT and telecoms will be entering in the years ahead.” 

Eurofiber, which boasts 281 staff, is one of the larger suppliers of digital network services in Western Europe. Founded in 2000, it runs a fibre network of 25.000 kilometres across the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Both of its data centres are connected to the Eurofiber fibre optic network and to the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX).

The news will give a boost to the Dutch government’s ’Digital Gateway of Europe’ initiative.

The deal was advised on by financial experts from IMAP DB&S and M&A lawyers from Janssen Broekhuysen Advocaten and Houthoff Buruma. Eurofiber was advised during the deal by lawyers from Houthoff Buruma (Maurits de Haan and Tessa Rozendal). Seller Dataplace received corporate financial advice from IMAP DB&S (Remco Schouten, Wiebecor Wijbrandi and Daan Zandbergen), while legal support was provided by Janssen Broekhuysen Advocaten (Jeroen Bleeker).

Financial details were not disclosed.