The Irish competition regulator has cleared the acquisition of BT Datacentres Ireland by Equinix on Thursday, following a full investigation.
Equinix, which operates several data centres near Dublin, bid in January to buy rival BT Ireland’s two Irish data centres, and the deal was referred to the State’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) for approval.
In May, following an “extended preliminary investigation”, the CCPC determined that a full investigation was required to establish if the proposed acquisition would lead to a substantial lessening of competition in the State.
The CCPC said the two parties provided “significant additional information” during the investigation and that the regulator is “satisfied” that the deal can proceed.
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BT Datacentres Ireland is part of Irish division of British telecoms group, BT.
A spokesperson for the company said, “We are pleased that the sale of our datacentre business to Equinix has been approved by the Consumer and Competition Protection Commission (CCPC).”
The company said the deal “marks a significant milestone in the transaction, with completion expected by the end of the year.”
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Equinix, which is one of the biggest players globally in the data centre and digital infrastructure industry, has six centres in Dublin.
It provides digital infrastructure for various cloud, IT, finance, content and media service providers. The company’s Irish clients include Vodafone, Verizon, Hewlett Packard, Accenture, Zayo and Deloitte.
Its latest accounts show that Equinix (Ireland) Ltd saw post-tax profits decrease from €13.6 million to €7.1 million, while revenue rose by 33 per cent from €48.9 million to €65.2 million in 2023.
Cost of sales at the Irish data centre host more than doubled from €22.7 million to €46.8 million, and gross margin fell from 54 per cent in 2022 to 28 per cent in 2023.
As part of the accounts published in November, the company’s directors noted that demand for Equinix Ireland’s data centre capacity remained solid.
The market for their product “continues to show strong growth,” the company said, citing increasing internet traffic and corresponding rises in the requirements for power and cooling capacity as well as increased use of computing in the financial services industry, among other factors.
A spokesman for Equinix said: “We welcome the Consumer and Competition Protection Commission’s (CCPC) approval of Equinix’s acquisition of BT’s Irish data centre business, consisting of sites in CityWest and Ballycoolin, Dublin. Completion is expected by the end of the year.”
