TierPoint data center sold

The Spokane area’s largest data center, TierPoint in Liberty Lake, has been acquired by Cequel Data Centers LLC, a St. Louis-based company with similar operations across the United States.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But the size of the transaction was “significant,” according to TierPoint CEO Octavio Morales.

While the amount of the purchase was not disclosed, a press release noted that five financial services firms were involved: Goldman Sachs, CapitalSource Bank, US Bank, ING Capital and CoBank.

Morales said TierPoint’s 24 employees will not be affected. The main goal of the deal, he added, was to provide more capital to help the company grow and reach more Northwest customers.

TierPoint operates three data centers at its campus in Liberty Lake. Together the buildings provide more than 30,000 square feet of data-center space and almost 4.4 megawatts of power. Its third data center building also pioneered use of geothermal cooling water to control building heat.

The founding investor in TierPoint is Bernard Daines, one of the area’s leading technology advisers. Daines is no longer a manager of the company, having sold his interest to other partners.

TierPoint’s list of regional clients includes several banks and dozens of Northwest companies, including f5, Coldwater Creek, IT-Lifeline and Red Lion Hotels.

The decision to buy TierPoint was largely based on its offering a location in “one of the safest areas of the United States, with relatively low power costs and high fiber connectivity,” said Paul Estes, CEO of Cequel Data Centers.

TierPoint’s strategic focus will be the same, Estes added, with continued expansion into co-location, managed technology services and cloud computing services. Co-location refers to off-site business information storage, usually in data centers. Its value is to ensure that a company keeps operating despite natural disasters, fires or unusual disruptions.

Cequel Data Centers has been buying similar companies across the Midwest; the list includes facilities in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla.

The company was established in 2010 by Cequel III, a St. Louis management and investment firm, and Thompson Street Capital Partners, a St. Louis-based private equity firm, together with New York-based private equity firm Charterhouse Group.