News
U.S. telco reportedly hopes to raise $2.5 billion from sale of colocation portfolio.
Verizon is looking to sell its data centre assets and hopes to raise US$2.5 billion from the process.
This is according to sources cited in a Reuters report on Wednesday, who claimed that the U.S. telco has hired Citigroup to advise it on the sale.
These sources said that Verizon’s colocation portfolio includes 48 data centres and generates earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of approximately $275 million per year.
Verizon acquired the assets from Terremark in 2011 as part of a deal worth $1.4 billion, as the telco sought to expand its cloud computing presence.
A separate Reuters report in November claimed that Verizon was looking to sell out of the enterprise market altogether.
The newswire’s sources said at the time that $10 billion worth of assets were up for sale, which in addition to its data centre business included Verizon’s fixed-line telephony and Internet services business – which was known as MCI before Verizon acquired it over a decade ago.
However, days later Verizon CFO Fran Shammo rubbished the rumours, insisting there was no substance to them.
It will be interesting to see if Verizon issues a similar denial this time around.
