There may be a lot of consolidation going on in the data center space as more service providers look to cash in on the burgeoning cloud and managed services opportunity, but Internap is happy to remain as an independent company.
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Cooney: "I am not shopping the company" |
"I am not shopping the company and we listen to any offers that come in and respond accordingly," Eric Cooney, Internap's CEO, told Reuters.
Instead of selling off the company to one of these service providers, Cooney said that the "best value for our shareholders is to continue executing our organic growth plan."
What makes Internap attractive, says Clayton Moran, an analyst at The Benchmark Co, is that "it operates defensive telecom businesses with solid growth prospects, has no debt and the recent drop in the stock."
In addition to Internap, fellow data center providers Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX), InterXion Holding NV and SoftLayer could be potential takeover targets.
Speculation of Internap being an acquisition target comes amidst a slew of cloud service deals that have taken place over just the past six months. Notable examples of the cloud service acquisition trend include Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) $1.4 billion acquisition of Terremark and CenturyLink's (NYSE: CTL) $2.5 billion acquisition of Savvis.
Outside of the Tier 1 telcos, Tier 2 telcos Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN), TDS (NYSE: TDS), and Warwick Valley Telephone (Nasdaq: WWVY) have also been actively building their cloud portfolios through their acquisitions of Hosted Solutions, OneNeck IT and Alteva.
For more:
- Reuters has this article
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