Acquisition-hungry Lumison racks up first purchase

Datacentre hosting outfit trebles rack capacity with BlueSquare acquisition

Connectivity, hosting and managed IT services provider Lumison has kicked off its buy-and-build strategy by acquiring datacentre provider BlueSquare Data for £22m.

The Edinburgh-based outfit declared its intent to buy multiple firms when it was taken over by private equity firm Bridgepoint Development Capital in October.

Bluesquare, its first conquest, trebles the rack capacity Lumison can offer customers, handing it datacentres in Maidenhead and Milton Keynes.

Former Computacenter executive Mark Howling, who joined Lumison as executive chairman last year, said: "Importantly, it means that our aim of creating a fully integrated, high-quality, medium-sized services provider that can provide the full range of IT and network services that medium-sized organisations need has taken an important step forward."

Bridgepoint estimated that the UK datacentre hosting market is currently worth £15bn annually and is expanding at 10 per cent a year.