Equinix, a global digital infrastructure company, has announced it has completed its deal to acquire West African data centre and connectivity solutions provider MainOne for an enterprise value of US$320 million, marking the beginning of its expansion into the African continent.
The completion of the acquisition augments Equinix’s long-term strategy to become a leading African carrier-neutral digital infrastructure company by being able to bring a full range of transformative technologies and connectivity to Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
This acquisition will extend Platform Equinix into West Africa, giving organisations based inside and outside of Africa access to global and regional markets.
Nigeria has both the largest population and the largest economy of any country in Africa, with approximately 142 million active Internet subscribers. Home to new innovative digital ecosystems in FinTech and content, and digital media, it has great opportunity for expansion of digital services.
Equinix believes MainOne, headquartered in Lagos, to be one of the most exciting technology businesses to emerge from Africa, and Lagos is rapidly becoming a key connectivity hub for the wider West Africa region. Founded by Funke Opeke in 2010, the company has enabled connectivity for the business community of Nigeria and now has digital infrastructure assets, including three operational data centres, with an additional facility in Lagos expected to open in April 2022.
Globally, Platform Equinix is comprised of 240 data centres across 66 metros and 27 countries on six continents, providing data centre and interconnection services to more than 10,000 companies including more than 50% of Fortune 500 companies.
According to Equinix, the closure of the MainOne acquisition marks the latest in a series of strategic acquisitions for the world’s digital infrastructure company. Following the announcement of intent to acquire MainOne in December 2021, Equinix recently announced expansions in South America with its intended acquisition of three Entel data centres to accelerate Digital Transformation opportunities for local businesses and multinational companies.
