Yesterday saw some infrastructure M&A to the north in Canada. The global investment firm Digital Colony is acquiring Cogeco Peer 1 for C$720M, which works out to about $574M.
Cogeco Peer 1 is Cogeco’s business fiber, colo, and managed services division. It operates some 3000 route miles of fiber in the Toronto and Montreal metro areas as well as a 16-data-center colo footprint and associated network reaching into Vancouver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Portsmouth over in the UK. The division will likely rebrand after the deal is complete.
Cogeco bought Peer 1’s colo and managed hosting business back in 2013 for C$526M, so they don’t seem to have made a huge profit off of all of this. They plan to use the proceeds to repay debt and buy back some shares. Cogeco will still retain the fiber it needs in Toronto and Montreal, signing a commercial agreement with Ditigal Colony.
Digital Colony was founded by Digital Bridge (DataBank, Vantage, etc) and Colony Capital a little over a year ago to do deals like this. Might they have additional assets in mind up in Canada to combine with this purchase? Montreal is, after all, a hot market right now when it comes to internet infrastructure.
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Categories: Datacenter · Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber
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Recall that Vantage – which is controlled by Digital Bridge – just expanded to Montreal.