REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and LONDON -- Equinix, Inc., the global interconnection and data center company, today announced that it has closed a transaction for the purchase of IO UK's data center operating business in Slough, United Kingdom. The facility, which will be renamed LD10, is in close proximity to Equinix's existing Slough data center campus and will help meet growing demand for digital infrastructure connectivity in the United Kingdom and Europe.

IO UK's facility is a development phase asset, which opened for business in 2015. For the period to December 31, 2015, which is the last fully reported financial period, IO UK generated revenues of approximately $1.4 million. The agreement was signed on January 7, 2017 and the acquisition was completed on February 3, 2017.

"London remains a global economic engine, with leading enterprises and cloud service providers making it a primary hub for IT infrastructure. Adding additional interconnection and capacity in this market enables local and international customers to leverage Platform Equinix to meet their changing business needs – whether that is to connect to networks, clouds, or financial markets – Equinix is the place to be," said Eric Schwartz, president, EMEA, Equinix.

The UK is a global leader in cross-border connectivity. According to a new report by TechUK, the UK accounts for 11.5 per cent of global cross-border data flows in 2015— compared with 3.9 per cent of global GDP and 0.9 per cent of global population. Cross-border data flows for the UK increased 28 times between 2005 and 2015 and are expected to grow another five times through 2021, according to an independent report by Frontier Economics Ltd. LD10 will be the latest UK data center asset on Equinix's global interconnection platform which will support this increase in data traffic and facilitate the movement of it worldwide.

The LD10 International Business Exchange (IBX) data center will be tethered to the other data centers (LD4, LD5, LD6) on the Equinix Slough campus, enabling customers to easily interconnect with one another across business ecosystems for maximum collaboration across digital supply chains. The Slough campus also offers low-latency connectivity to key markets from London such as 30 milliseconds to New York and 4 milliseconds to Frankfurt.

With this transaction Equinix now operates 147 IBX data centers in 40 markets, providing customers even more ways to connect with other businesses around the world on Platform Equinix.

Equinix Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX)