Transaction summary &
Highlights
q.beyond AG (“q.beyond”), a German listed IT service provider, has sold IP Exchange GmbH (“IP Exchange”), its German colocation business, to NorthC Group B.V. (“NorthC”), a portfolio company of German-based independent asset manager DWS Infrastructure (“DWS”).
Through the sale of IP Exchange, q.beyond has completed its separation from the capital-intensive colocation business, in line with q.beyond’s strategic focus on IT services. The sale is another milestone in the implementation of q.beyond’s growth strategy “2020plus”.
The sale of IP Exchange was HHP’s second consecutive sell-side mandate for q.beyond, following our advice to q.beyond on the sale of Plusnet to EnBW in 2019. The HHP team again provided full sell-side advisory services to q.beyond in a highly competitive, multi-stage auction process and again achieved an exceptionally successful outcome for the seller and for all of q.beyond’s stakeholders.
Besides HHP q.beyond was advised by Gleiss Lutz (legal).
Background
q.beyond
q.beyond is a listed German IT service provider which resulted from the rebranding of QSC AG in September 2020 and is located in Cologne. With expertise in the areas of cloud, SAP and IoT, q.beyond accompanies SME customers on their digital journey.
IP Exchange
Active for over two decades, IP Exchange is a renowned German colocation service provider, operating data centres in Nuremberg and Munich.
NorthC
NorthC is the largest independent provider of regional colocation data centres in the Netherlands. Founded in 2019 through the merger of NLDC and TDCG, the acquisition of IP Exchange marks NorthC’s entrance into the German colocation market.