Continuing the trend of telecom companies divesting hosting and co-location assets, Deutsche Telekom announced last week that it would sell its Strato hosting arm to United Internet for E600mm, approximately 12.4x 2016 EBITDA. For those keeping score, Deutsche Telekom acquired Strato in 2009 for E275MM giving it a compound annual return of about 11.8% (ignoring intervening cash flows.)
Two other key points; approximately E34mm of the purchase price is subject to the business hitting certain performance targets which may take a little of the price risk out of the deal. Second, United Internet is reporting an expected E20mm p.a. of synergies from integrating the two businesses. Those additional synergies bring the incremental EBITDA margin for United to approximately 54%.
Overall pricing is in the same ballpark as GoDaddy's recent purchase of Host Europe Group.
United Internet's presentation on the purchase can be found here.
As always, please feel free to contact us if you have any comments, or questions.
Cheval Capital, Inc.
Disclaimer: This post is for general information purposes and is not meant to be taken as financial advice, a recommendation to buy or sell the stocks mentioned above, a comprehensive discussion of valuation or how to do the calculations discussed. Please be sure to consult your financial advisors when valuing your company, considering the sale of your business or making other financial decisions.
Author: Hillary Stiff is Managing Director of Cheval Capital. She has been an investment banker and CFO, completing M&A transactions and arranging financing for a number of companies including NTT/Verio, The Endurance International Group and Web.Com among many others. She has helped complete over 350 successful web hosting, ISP and related transactions and distributes a list of hosting and related companies that are for sale.