May 14, 2003 -- The buying continues for NaviSite, which has won a bankruptcy court auction for the assets of Interliant, Inc.
NaviSite, which has acquired five data center services companies in the last 18 months, will pay $7 million to acquire Interliant's ongoing business, which includes its remaining customers and about 52,000 square feet of data center space at sites in Houston and Vienna, Va.
Last month Interliant announced that Pequot Ventures had offered to buy the company for $4.8 million. But Chapter 11 deals are structured as auctions to ensure the highest recovery for creditors, and when the auction was held, NaviSite emerged with the highest bid.
NaviSite will acquire Interliant through a wholly-owned subsidiary, and will also assume some liabilities. The deal has been approved by the bankruptcy court and is scheduled to close Friday.
"The acquisition of the Interliant business is another important step in the growth of NaviSite as a leader in the managed application and infrastructure services industry," said Arthur Becker, CEO of NaviSite.
Becker said the deal would be "earnings accretive" - meaning that NaviSite expects to report higher earnings per share after transaction costs.
NaviSite is the primary operating unit of the US hosting assets controlled by Unicorn Holdings, whose principals founded Global Switch. In the past 18 months, the company has acquired hosting assets of COLO.COM, Applied Theory, NaviSite, Avasta, and Conxion.
Interliant filed for bankruptcy last August, and has since restructured leases at its data center facilities in Vienna, Virginia and Houston, Texas. It shut its Atlanta data center and sold the customers from that site to Inflow Inc.
It has also restructured its equipment leases, and recently auctioned surplus equipment in an auction at Alpharetta, Ga. The company provides managed infrastructure solutions including messaging, security, and hosting.
"Interliant's experience, service offerings, and strong customer base in the messaging arena are an ideal fit to enhance NaviSite's services portfolio," said Gabriel Ruhan, COO for NaviSite. "This move will also allow NaviSite to leverage investments it has made in data center and infrastructure assets as well."