Interoute

Interoute Communications Ltd was a privately held telecommunications company, that operated Europe's largest cloud services[1] platform. On 23 February 2018, Interoute was acquired by GTT Communications for $2.3bn (€1.9bn);[2] the acquisition closed on 31 May 2018.[3]

Interoute
TypePrivate
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded1995
HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom
Revenue700 Mio € (2016)
Number of employees
2400
Websitehttp://www.interoute.com

Operations

Interoute's network is the largest privately owned Europe-wide IP cloud.[4]

With ten subsea landing stations ringing the edge of Europe, it acts as the landing point for a number of submarine cable systems, as well as providing the European link to the SEACOM cable connecting East and South Africa to Europe. Mediterranean operators Tunisie Telecom, Malta's GO and Greece's OTE link directly to the Interoute network in Italy.

Interoute's offices: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, plus Network Operations Centres in Sofia and Prague and Customer Service Centres in Prague.

History

Interoute was founded in 1995 and restructured into its current form amidst the collapse of the telecommunications sector.[5] Four weeks after its holding company i-21 Holdings Ltd., went into administration,[6] Interoute Telecommunications also went [7] by its main supplier, Alcatel. A team led by Chairman and CEO James Kinsella[8] undertook extensive restructuring and sold its traditional telephony operations in order to concentrate exclusively on network and Internet services. A final settlement with Alcatel was reached, effective February 2003.

The core of Interoute's assets is a purpose-built network spanning the European Union. That physical infrastructure was supplemented through a series of acquisitions. Interoute acquired the Ebone portion of the KPNQwest NV network from receivers McStay Luby in July 2002. The deal transferred eight high-capacity metropolitan area networks (MANs) into Interoute's ownership, at a cost rumoured to be a fraction of the €645 million KPNQwest paid for it.[9] In November 2002, The Daily Telegraph reported that Interoute was hit by £310 million debt.[10] Between 2003 and 2007 Interoute acquired a number of businesses, including: Virtue Broadcasting's Media Services Division, to expand its value-added services portfolio;[11] Central European Communications Holdings BV (CECOM) and its operating subsidiaries in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Poland and Romania, which extended its footprint in the CEE;[12] the European operations of hosting provider VIA NET.WORKS; and PSINet's European operations in Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Switzerland; plus Managed Services businesses in Sweden and Bulgaria. More recently (Oct 2014), they acquired Vtesse Group to expand their cloud services portfolio across the UK.

In September 2015, Interoute announced plans to acquire Easynet (MDNX) for £402m.[13][14]

Acquisition by GTT

On 28 February 2018 GTT Communications announced the acquisition of Interoute for $2.3 billion.[15] The acquisition closed on 31 May.[3]

Financial

A privately held company, before the purchase by GTT Communications Interoute was owned by the Sandoz Family Foundation,[16] one of the world's largest private family foundations as well as by Aleph Capital, an independent investment firm based in London and Crestview Partners.

Products

Offering unified ICT services. Interoute's services broadly fall into the categories of network infrastructure, voice, data, and managed services.

Cloud Computing Services - see Interoute Virtual Data Centre (VDC)- a scalable, fully automated Infrastructure as a Service solution, providing on-demand computing, storage and applications integrated into the IT infrastructure.

Dedicated hosting service- Interoute was named as a leader in the 2013 Magic Quadrant for European Managed Hosting 2013. Gartner evaluates vendors based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute.

Managed Security Services, Application Management, Data center Services, Colocation, Unified Communications - certified by Microsoft to provide SIP-trunking for enterprise customers who use Microsoft Outlook Communication Server (OCS), Unified Connectivity - MPLS VPN.

References
  1. "Cloud Services". Interoute.com. 18 March 2013. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  2. "GTT shares jump as it buys Interoute for $2.3bn". Financial Times. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  3. "GTT Completes Acquisition of Interoute". Businesswire.com. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-12-13. Retrieved 2009-12-24.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. "Tech Investor: Predictions for 2002 - Dec. 27, 2001". Money.cnn.com. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  6. Bennett, Amy. "Lights out at Interoute". Itworld.com. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  7. Moore, Malcolm (28 November 2002). "Interoute hit by £310m debt". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  8. "Bloomberg research". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
  9. "Interoute Acquires Ebone - Light Reading". Lightreading.com. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  10. Moore, Malcolm (2002-11-28). "Interoute hit by £310m debt". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2017-09-29.
  12. "Interoute Buys Cecom - Light Reading". Lightreading.com. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  13. "Interoute buys Easynet for £402 million | Business Cloud News". Businesscloudnews.com. Retrieved 2017-09-29.
  14. "Easynet swallowed by Interoute in £402m acquisition". Channelweb.co.uk. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
  15. "GTT Paying $2.3 Billion for Interoute's Europe Fiber Network".
  16. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-12-26. Retrieved 2009-12-24.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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