Sungard to Acquire Vericenter

Disaster recovery specialist SunGard has reached a definitive agreement to acquire VeriCenter, Inc., a Houston provider of managed hosting, colocation, and infrastructure services. Terms were not disclosed, but Sungard said the deal isn't expected to have a material impact on its financial results.

Sungard has annual revenue exceeding $4 billion, with more than 25,000 customers in more than 50 countries, including the world's 50 largest financial services companies. Vericenter will become part of Sungard Availability Services, which operates more than 3 million square feet of hardened facilities. Sungard Availability services range from 48-hour disaster recovery hotsites to always-on, high-availability infrastructure and electronic vaulting services.

VeriCenter hosts 600 customers on its network of seven data center facilities, which include 470,000 square feet of capacity. The company reported second quarter 2007 bookings of $7.2 million in annual recurring revenue, with 75 percent of its revenue from managed services and the remainder from colocation.

The acquisition of VeriCenter adds to Sungard's data center footprint, and adds additional managed service capabilities to SunGard's service offerings. Vericenter hosts business applications, Websites, Software-as-a-Service, and messaging and collaboration applications.

"The powerful blend of SunGard's deep portfolio of information availability services, VeriCenter's strong facility footprint and the world class expertise of our combined team will further enhance the ability to help protect customers' mission-critical people, systems and applications," said Ted Gaasche, chief executive officer of SunGard Availability Services.

"SunGard is a best-in-class business continuity services provider and it has a rapidly growing managed services business," said Gray Hall, chief executive officer of VeriCenter. "More of VeriCenter's customers seek a total availability solution from a single vendor, and combining our managed services delivery with SunGard Availability Services will help meet this need. Together, we can serve customers that seek business continuity, managed services or the blend of the two."