Rackspace announced that it signed an agreement to acquire Datapipe, one of the world's leading providers of managed services across public and private clouds, managed hosting and colocation. This acquisition, the largest in Rackspace history, brings important new capabilities to Rackspace and will enable the company to better serve customers of all kinds, globally and at scale.

Citigroup is acting as sole financial advisor to Rackspace in the transaction and has committed to provide incremental Senior Secured Credit Facilities, which will be used in part to refinance Datapipe's existing indebtedness and pay related fees and expenses. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is acting as legal advisor to Rackspace.

According to industry surveys, the vast majority of companies operate across three or more clouds today, and will do so for years to come. Customers have been asking Rackspace to rapidly expand its abilities in managing multiple clouds at scale, and with the acquisition of Datapipe, Rackspace will be able to meet this growing demand.

"Our customers are looking for help as they spread their applications across public and private clouds, managed hosting, and colocation, depending on the blend of performance, agility, control, security, and cost-efficiency they're seeking," said Joe Eazor, CEO of Rackspace. "With the acquisition of Datapipe, we're very pleased to expand the multi-cloud managed services we provide our customers, while also opening doors to new opportunities across the globe."

Founded in 2000, Datapipe is a pioneer in managed public cloud services. It is a growing and profitable business, based in Jersey City, N.J., with 825 employees and 29 data centers in nine countries. Datapipe serves the complex needs of many large enterprises, including Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds and Rubbermaid.

"We are very proud of the business we have built and the innovations and successful customer outcomes we have been recognized for, and the future of Datapipe will be even brighter in combination with Rackspace," said Robb Allen, founder and CEO of Datapipe. "Customers need guidance using public cloud infrastructure from Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. They also need help navigating the use of private clouds, managed hosting and colocation solutions, often in combination, as they move critical applications out of their corporate data centers. The combination of complementary capabilities and resources from both of our companies will create the world's leading provider of multi-cloud managed services."
 
Rackspace intends to build on the industry leadership the two companies have established in reliability and support, to create a new level of end-to-end customer experience.

Pending regulatory approvals, Rackspace's acquisition of Datapipe is expected to close in Q4 2017. Rackspace will develop a comprehensive integration plan and will take great care to maintain and enhance the exceptional customer outcomes that both companies are known for. Rackspace looks forward to welcoming the talented employees from Datapipe.

Both companies are privately held, with Rackspace owned by affiliates of certain funds of Apollo Global Management, LLC and certain co-investors. The majority owner of Datapipe, Abry Partners, will receive equity in Rackspace. Brian St. Jean, Partner at Abry, described this transaction as "a measure of our confidence in the bright future of Rackspace when combined with Datapipe." No additional terms or details of the transaction will be publicly disclosed.

Barclays and DH Capital are acting as financial advisors in the transaction to Datapipe. DLA Piper LLP is acting as legal advisor to Datapipe.