COMPASS ACQUIRES ROOT DATA CENTER

Compass Datacenters has just announced its acquisition of Montreal based wholesale colocation provider Root Data Center, for an undisclosed amount.

This acquisition deal is coming barely a week after Compass announced a plan to develop up to $3 billion in new data center campuses following additional capital from Red Bird and Ontario Teachers as well as Azrieli’s £135 million investment for the purchase of 20 percent stake.

“We are pleased to announce this acquisition and welcome the Root team to Compass,” said Chris Crosby, CEO of Compass Datacenters. “Our team has been impressed with what AJ [CEO of Root] and his team have built and their strong reputation with customers.”

As announced, the CEO of Root Data center AJ Byers, will be joining Compass as the company’s President, International.

“We are excited to join the Compass team. Our existing customers now have access to strategic U.S. markets, while Compass’s customers benefit from what Montreal brings,” AJ comments. “In particular, Montreal’s ample fiber capacity and inexpensive supply of renewable power via Hydro-Quebec enables cloud/hyperscale companies to achieve their sustainability goals while also growing at the pace necessary to meet demand.”

Following the acquisition, Compass will have the capacity to expand up to 375MW of IT load across its current campuses.

Root operates two data centers in Montreal and will have a total capacity of 65MW once the company completes the expansion of its MTL-R1 data center. Both facilities will now become Compass’ first in Canada.

“We are close to completing the first building on our Northern Virginia campus and have begun construction on our Phoenix campus. Overall, we are on track to deliver substantial capacity in some of the fastest growing hyperscale markets across the U.S. and Canada,” AJ adds.

On the acquisition transaction, McMillan LLP and Wick Phillips served as legal counsel to Compass, while DH Capital, LLC served as exclusive financial advisor and Dentons LLP served as legal advisor to Root Data Center.