Vocus buys up Ipera for AU$9.8M

Dark fibre and datacentre company Vocus Communications has entered a binding agreement to buy out Newcastle-based fibre and datacentre provider Ipera Communications for AU$9.8 million, the company announced today.

The move will give Vocus 55km of fibre in Newcastle, to add to the 235km of fibre the company has across the country, of which it currently utilises less than 5 percent. The company will also add 81 on-net fibre buildings to the 166 buildings the company already has, and another two datacentres to the existing 43 datacentres across the country, according to the company's 2012 annual report.

Ipera has been in operation since 2000 and serves a number of the telecommunications companies in the regional New South Wales city, as well as organisations such as NIB, Hunter Water, and Macquarie Generation.

Ipera founder Chris Deere will initially stay on to manage the Newcastle business for Vocus, before taking on a broader role within Vocus. He said that the acquisition will have significant benefits for customers of both Ipera and Vocus.

Vocus CEO James Spenceley said that the Ipera and Vocus business models of playing in both the fibre and the datacentre markets made them the perfect fit.

"Ipera's combination of large corporate and wholesale customers fits very nicely with the existing business," he said in a statement. "Vocus will now be able to service the national requirements of Newcastle-based businesses, as well as expand the services Ipera already successfully provides locally in Newcastle."

The sale price is at AU$9.8 million, with AU$4.9 million paid out initially, and the rest is subject to a 12-month earn out, according to Vocus.

Vocus has a history of acquiring datacentre companies to expand its footprint, and in the last two years, it has picked up E3's Sydney and Melbourne datacentres and Perth IX.

In September, the company announced that it would quadruple its subsea cable capacity with Southern Cross, and Spencely stating at the time that Vocus was close to reaching its initial capacity.