CyrusOne, the Carrollton, Texas-based data center provider that went public in January and was converged into a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), reported financial results for the first time since its shares started trading on Nasdaq.

Gary Wojtaszek, the company's president and CEO, said the year's results, combined with the success of the IPO, put the company in good position to grow over the next decade. “CyrusOne is well-positioned and qualified to meet the exploding data storage needs of enterprise companies who entrust the management of their mission-critical IT infrastructure to us,” he said.

CyrusOne's revenue for the fourth quarter was US$58m – up 21% year over year. Funds from operations (a REIT metric comparable to income) were $12.4m – down from $14.3m in income the company reported for the fourth quarter of 2011.

CyrusOne said the drop in income was mostly a result of transaction costs from the IPO and “certain no-recurring charges recorded in 2011”. Not counting the IPO-related transaction costs, its income for the quarter was actually up 17% year over year.

Those IPO transaction costs also contributed to a loss in full-year income for the company. The company, which prior to the IPO was owned by Cincinnati Bell, sold about 19m common shares at $19 per share in January.

CyrusOne reported a $20.3m loss for 2012, compared to a net income of $1.5m it reported for 2011. Other reasons for the loss included a $13.3m asset-impairment charge taken in Q2, as well as higher depreciation and amortization rates.

The company's full-year 2012 revenue, however, was $220.8m – up 22% from the preceding year.

Simultaneously with taking the company public, its former owners also converted it into a REIT, which substantially lowers the amount of corporate taxes it has to pay. Equinix, a global data center giant, has also announced plans to convert.

Both companies will be closely watched by the data center industry players to see how well the REIT conversions pan out, Steve Lee, managing director at the Bank Street Group, an investment banking firm, said. This trend will have an impact on the way other companies think about operating and structuring their businesses, he said.

Among the year's other highlights was commissioning of the first phase of the company's biggest data center site to date in December. Phase I of its Phoenix data center brought online 36,000 sq ft, but the site is capable of delivering a total of 110MW of power at full build-out.

CyrusOne has commissioned three other data centers during 2012, all in Texas: Austin, Dallas and San Antonio. It has also expanded its Houston facility.

All in all, the company added 195,000 sq ft of live data center space across its footprint in 2012.

As of the fourth quarter, the utilization rate of CyrusOne's colocation space was 78%, including Phoenix.