The Rigby Group, a £2 billion ($3.2bn) UK firm with interests including airports, has bought SSE Enterprise Telecom’s Hampshire data center for £12m.

The Rigby Group owns Exeter and Coventry airports, and is one of Europe’s largest independent telecoms groups. Its technology arm, SCC, will take control of the Fareham-based data center, bringing its data center investment to more than £50m in the last 12 months.

Room for expansion

The 100,000 sq ft high-density Hampshire facility is engineered to Tier III+ standards and has room for expansion. The site contains pre-configured communal colocation space and private suites. This purchase will add a second Tier III+ data center to SCC’s portfolio, doubling its capacity, and will serve as its key facility in the south of the UK.

The company witnessed growth of 69 percent from data center and cloud services last year after securing customers including Gist, Aggregate Industries, BOC, IBM, Oxfordshire County Council, CAA and Highways Agency.

“The purchase of SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ data center more than doubles our capacity to support existing and new customers,” SCC CEO James Rigby said. “It underpins the £50m spent on developing our data center and cloud capabilities last year”.