Private equity giant Blackstone has once again made a big bet in the tech industry, this time on a major operator of data centers within North America and Europe. That operator is QTS Realty Trust, a publicly-traded company.

• Blackstone has agreed to pay $10bn in cash to buy all outstanding shares of QTS on the public markets, effectively taking control of the company. It’ll pay $78 per common stock of QTS, a 21% premium to the company’s share price on the day it announced the deal.

• Blackstone’s acquisition agreement with QTS includes a 40-day “go-shop” period where the data center company can seek competing bids rivaling Blackstone’s offer. That window closes on the 17th of July, 2021.

• The $10bn price tag of Blackstone’s bid sums up to 19x QTS’s revenue of $539mn and several hundred times its net income of $15mn in 2020. At that high multiple, it’s obvious Blackstone really wants the company.

• QTS was founded in 2003. It’s a leading data center operator in North America and Europe, with more than 7 million square feet of owned data center space. That is a lot of real estate for Blackstone to add to its already giant real estate foothold.

• Subject to approval by QTS shareholders, Blackstone’s takeover of the company is expected to be completed in the second half of this year.

• This very month, Blackstone has participated in two other big takeover deals that we reported on. They include tech publisher IDG which the firm paid $1.3bn to acquire and medical products company Medline which it teamed up with two other firms to buy in a deal worth $30bn.

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