Cosentry Enters St. Louis Market With Acquisition of XIOLINK

Omaha-based Cosentry is a big player in the Midwest, and it just got a little bigger. The company acquired St. Louis-based XIOLINK, moving it into a fourth market and strengthening its managed services portfolio. In addition to Omaha, and now St. Louis, Cosentry has data centers in Kansas City and Sioux Falls, S.D. Financial Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

XIOLINK is an established player in the St. Louis market. It approached the market from a managed services perspective and later added data center space. Cosentry's roots are in colocation, but the company expanded into cloud services and hosting infrastructure. XIOLINK's managed services not only bring Cosentry into a new market, it also fills out an already rich portfolio of colocation, cloud and held desk services offered by Cosentry.

"The rationale for the acquisition is two-fold,” said CoSentry CEO Brad Hokamp. “As a company, we want to grow our business and establish a greater position in the Midwest. St. Louis is a priority market for Cosentry. Looking at the St. Louis market, it’s a great foundation to expand into. We’re looking to expand in the Midwest, into underserved markets. We looked at the market opportunities, and St. Louis had the business demographics.”

Growth for Cosentry

It was a busy 2013 for Cosentry. The company completed a refinancing of its existing credit facilities that provided the company with up to $100 million of capital for its continued expansion. It also named industry veteran Hokamp its new CEO, and doubled capacity in Omaha after rapidly selling out its first phase at its Midlands data center.

XIOLINK customers also gain from the acquisition, which will bring a better network and Cosentry’s data center portfolio, which can be leveraged for disaster recovery services. XIOLINK spent around $25 million on renovations and expansion in 2013.

“We are excited about the newly combined company’s strength and scale,  which will allow us to continue providing customers with exceptional service while investing in and expanding our operations in the Midwest region,” said Brad Pittenger, XIOLINK CEO.  “We will integrate seamlessly into Cosentry and be the platform for the managed services operations of the new company.  In addition, our customers will now benefit from multi-city disaster recovery services throughout the region.”

Cosentry will operate XIOLINK’s two data centers in St. Louis. Pittenger, who co-founded XIOLINK 1999, will leave the company after a transition period of three to six months. Cosentry's head of operations will relocate to St. Louis from Omaha.

Cosentry will now operate in four Midwest markets with eight data centers, including Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis and Sioux Falls.  In addition, the breadth of services now include private and public cloud capabilities, hosting infrastructure solutions, extensive managed services, disaster recovery and help desk outsourcing.

Cosentry specializes in Midwest data center services, providing colocation, cloud, hosting and managed services out of facilities built with resiliency in mind.  Private equity firm TA Associates acquired Cosentry in 2011.