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CEO Says CyrusOne Isn’t Looking for a Buyer
Seeks to end M&A speculation, says the company remains focused on strategy
Yevgeniy Sverdlik
November 1, 2019
2 Min Read
CyrusOne data center in Carrollton, TexasCyrusOne
CyrusOne management is not looking to sell the company, CEO Gary Wojtaszek said, seeking to end speculation that started after a Bloomberg report that said the opposite, attributing the information to anonymous sources.
The report came out in August, and the company’s shares began a steady climb, at one point reaching $79 – a 23 percent gain over their pre-report price and a record for the data center provider, which went public in 2013. CyrusOne shares have been trending down since reaching that peak in October and slid 5 percent following Wojtaszek’s statement Thursday during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.
“As you may be aware,” the CEO told the analysts on the call, “several media outlets have reported, and some of you have speculated, that … we're in discussions with various third parties regarding a potential sale of the company. We are not currently pursuing a sale of the company. We remain focused on our strategy and creating long-term shareholder value.”
The Bloomberg report in August said a group of institutional investors, including KKR, Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners, and I Squared Capital were weighing a bid for the provider, which has successfully ridden the recent wave of hyperscale data center growth. Other potential bidders were also interested.
In September, Bloomberg reported that CyrusOne’s biggest rival, Digital Realty Trust, and other new bidders had emerged, including investors EQT Partners and Digital Colony. The second report also relied on anonymous sources.
Earlier this week, two days before CyrusOne’s earnings call, Digital Realty announced it had reached a deal to acquire European data center giant Interxion for $8.4 billion. On a conference call following the announcement, Digital’s CEO Bill Stein said his team's plate was full with the Interxion deal, and that they would not be pursuing any more acquisitions in the immediate future.
"There’s nothing like that on our horizon," Stein said. "That’s not to say that we won’t do another acquisition, but right now our plate is full."
