CoreSite is reportedly exploring its options around a potential sale.
Reuters reports the data center real estate trust (REIT) is working with an investment bank to explore its options after attracting acquisition interest.
The company operates more than 25 data centers across North America and has a market value of more than $8 billion.
CoreSite has reportedly been approached by companies that include American Tower Corp, Digital Realty Trust, and a number of private equity firms.
CoreSite was founded in 2001 as CRG West at two of the West coast's original carrier hotels: Market Post Tower and One Wilshire. Originally a portfolio company of The Carlyle Group, it became a public company in 2010.
While Digital Realty is one of the largest data center firms in the world, American Tower currently has a relatively small portfolio of three data centers. The cell tower REIT entered the data center colocation business after acquiring Colo Atl in 2019 and renaming it Metro Data Center. It then expanded its presence at 55 Marietta Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, as well as acquiring Cyber Wurx and taking its space in the facility in May. Last month the company acquired colo provider DataSite, taking over two data centers in Atlanta and Orlando, Florida, totaling more than 200,000 sq ft.
Digital Realty regularly acquires and invests in data center companies, with one of its largest mergers with the then-publicly listed Interxion in 2019 for $8.4 billion. At the time Interxion had around 53 data centers totaling 290MW in 13 metro areas across Europe. Prior to that, it merged with DuPont Fabros for $8bn.
2021 could potentially see a number of publicly listed data center REITs taken private; QTS was acquired by Blackstone this year for $10 billion, while CyrusOne is reportedly exploring a potential sale of the company.
Cyxtera recently became the latest publicly-listed data center firm after completing a SPAC merger with Starboard Value Acquisition Corp.
