While the hyperscale cloud companies continue to post impressive growth figures, most of the large publicly-listed colo firms continue a more sluggish, slow-and-steady picture to their financials for Q3 2021.

Digital Realty posted another healthy profit but saw limited growth. As well as noting a number of previously reported investments, divestments, and joint ventures, the company finally sold a 56-acre plot in Mesa which was originally earmarked for a 1 million sq ft campus by Dupont Fabros. Digital has held the land since it acquired Dupont Fabros in 2017.

Equinix saw ten percent revenue growth compared to Q3 2020,but just a one percent increase compared to Q2. The company leased just 2MW this quarter across its entire currently xScale portfolio, in Frankfurt.

After Bruce Duncan stepped down as CEO in July, CyrusOne refused to deny rumors it was exploring a sale, simply noting it was “open-minded to all avenues and alternatives to maximizing our shareholder value.” The company also acquired parcels of land in Frankfurt and San Antonio totaling 22MW of capacity and quietly opened the first data hall of its new Paris facility that is fully leased.

Switch saw a net loss of $900,000, and confirmed it was to switch its status to a Real Estate Investment trust (REIT) by 2023.

CoreSite saw revenues increase compared to 2020 but little movement compared to Q2 2021; Net income, however, was down 13 percent on Q2. The company completed a 54,000 sq ft, 6MW expansion to its LA3 facility in Los Angeles, California. It also announced plans to exit and vacate its leased data center space at LA4 and two computer rooms at LA1 (aka the One Wilshire carrier hotel) by the end of 2021.

Iron Mountain saw steady progress and is aiming to lease 30MW of new business by the end of the year.

This quarter saw QTS go private after being acquired by Blackstone.

Cyxtera is yet report results. We will update this story as more results come in.

Digital Realty

Digital Realty reported revenues for the third quarter of 2021 of $1.1 billion, a 4 percent increase from the previous quarter and an 11 percent increase from the same quarter last year. Net income for the quarter was $137 million and Adjusted EBITDA came to $610 million.

"Digital Realty's global platform, broad product spectrum, and significant scale underpinned our strong third-quarter results," said Digital Realty CEO A. William Stein. "Record new logo growth and continued strong bookings in the quarter reflect the global adoption of PlatformDIGITAL, while our robust internal processes enabled us to execute consistently for our growing list of customers."

The company signed a total of 73.1MW and 726,975 sq ft in new leases during the quarter, with more than half within the US and greater than 1MW. It signed renewal leases representing $223m of rental revenue during the quarter. Globally its facilities have an average occupancy rate of 84.2 percent.

The company noted its existing joint venture between Digital Realty and PGIM Real Estate completed the sale of a portfolio of 10 data centers totaling 1.167 million square feet of lettable space in North America for $581 million. This is likely the data centers sold to Menlo Equities in September and previously reported by DCD. PGIM Real Estate owned an 80 percent interest and Digital Realty 20 percent interest in the joint venture; the transaction generated net proceeds of approximately $347 million, of which Digital Realty's share was approximately $85 million, including a $19 million promote fee.

Digital Realty also closed on the sale of a 56-acre land parcel on Crismon Road in Mesa, Arizona during the third quarter for approximately $17 million. The land is seemingly the plot originally purchased by Dupont Fabros Technology in 2017; the company planned to develop a 1 million sq ft ‘East Valley campus’ but was bought by Digital Realty later that same year.

Digital Realty had approximately $14.1 billion of total debt outstanding as of September 2021.

Equinix

Equinix reported quarterly revenues of $1.675 billion, up 10 percent on Q3 2020 but just 1 percent on Q2 of this year. Operating Income was $282 million, again a 1 percent rise on Q2, while Net Income was $152 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $786 million.

Charles Meyers, President and CEO, Equinix, said: "The pandemic has triggered an accelerated need to digitize business models in virtually every segment of the economy, and our strong Q3 results are reflective of this increasing demand for digital services. As the world's digital infrastructure company, Equinix remains uniquely positioned to help businesses as they shift towards distributed, hybrid and multicloud as the clear architecture of choice."

Equinix opened 11 new data centers in 9 metros, and noted it approved expansions of 2.3k cabinets of power capacity at four data centers, namely Madrid (MD6), Milan (ML5), Frankfurt (FR5), and Melbourne (ME2).

The company pre-leased 2MW of Frankfurt 11x, one of its xScale hyperscale facilities. Another 2MW being leased at Madrid 3x is from Equinix leasing it for the retail IBX Madrid 6 facility. The acquisition of GPX India and two facilities closed in September.

Equinix didn’t mention the acquisition of SG3 in Singapore from Mapletree Industrial Trust.

CyrusOne

CyrusOne reports revenues of $304.1 million for the quarter, up 16 percent on the previous year’s quarter.

Net Income was $6.7 million – compared to a net loss of $37.3 million for the equivalent quarter last year – while Adjusted EBITDA was up 13 percent on 2020 to $149.2 million. Net operating income was $170.7 million for the third quarter, compared to $153.1 million in the same period in 2020. The company’s facilities have an occupancy rate of 86 percent.

The company leased 20MW and 100,000 colocation square feet in the third quarter, mostly within Europe, totaling $37.8 million in annualized GAAP revenue, and completed construction on 161,000 sq ft and 38 MW of power capacity across Phoenix, Northern Virginia, the New York Metro area, Cincinnati, Paris, and Frankfurt. One facility in London and two data halls in Sterling, Virginia are due to complete by the end of the year, the rest are set for Q2 2022 or beyond.

As well as opening a purpose-built facility in Paris, the company said it had acquired six- and 10-acre parcels of land in Frankfurt, Germany, and San Antonio, Texas, respectively, each with an estimated power capacity of 21MW.

CyrusOne currently has development projects underway in London, Frankfurt, Northern Virginia, and San Antonio that are expected to add approximately 211,000 colocation sq ft and 49MW of power capacity plus 469,000 sq ft of powered shell.

“We had strong financial results and another good bookings quarter, including a significant contribution from our European markets and healthy pricing across the leases,” said David Ferdman, interim president and CEO of CyrusOne. “The demand environment remains strong, we continue to have productive discussions with our customers, and we are well-positioned with capacity across the portfolio and more than $2 billion of available liquidity to support our growth.”

The on the subject of whether the company was indeed up for sale, the company didn’t confirm or deny the speculation, simply noting that it was ‘open-minded’.

“I am not going to comment on any market rumor, said Ferdman during the investor call. “What I will say is that we are open-minded to all avenues and alternatives to maximizing our shareholder value.”

COO John P. Hatem said there was to be no operational changes when asked about the company outsourcing facility management in the US to JLL.

“There’s no change in our operating model across our sites,” said John Hatem, the Chief Operating Officer for CyrusOne. “It’s a vendor, and we have lots of them. There’s no change to how we run the business day-to-day.”

CyrusOne had $3.56 billion of long-term debt, $456 million of cash and cash equivalents, and approximately $1.39 billion available under its unsecured revolving credit facility as of September 2021.

CoreSite

CoreSite reported adjusted EBITDA of $85.7 million, an increase of 5.2 percent to the same quarter last year but a decrease of 2 percent on the previous quarter of 2021. The company reported operating revenues to $163.9 million, an increase of 6.4 percent year over year and 1.1 percent sequentially. Net income was $21.8 million, compared to $21.1m for Q3 2020 and down from $25.2m in Q2.

CoreSite said it commenced 122 new and expansion leases for 29,308 net rentable square feet, representing $7.1 million of annualized GAAP rent. It also signed a single large-scale lease for $1.7 million and 32,790 sq ft at its SV7 facility in Santa Clara, California, though noted it also saw a large tenant leave the facility. It also renewed 296 leases totaling 118,887 sq ft and $18.7 million of annualized GAAP rent.

“Demand trends continue to be positive for low-latency, high-performance, hybrid-cloud IT solutions across our markets,” said Paul Szurek, CoreSite’s President and CEO. “Our excellent team continues to build on and strengthen the diverse customer ecosystems in each of our eight markets and our connectivity products to facilitate digital transformation. Our purpose-built, power-efficient, and scalable data center campuses enable the interoperability required for multi and hybrid-cloud solutions and the current and future needs of enterprises, networks, and cloud providers. "

The company said it completed a 54,000 sq ft, 6MW Phase 2 development project at its LA3 facility in Los Angeles, California, in October. The facility first opened in December 2020; the company noted LA3 Phase one is now 93 percent leased, less than 12 months after opening. A 35,000 sq ft, 4MW expansion at its NY2 facility in New York is underway and due to complete Q1 2022.

It also announced plans to exit and vacate its leased data center space at LA4 and two computer rooms at LA1 by the end of 2021. LA1 – located at 624 S. Grand Ave. and known as One Wilshire – is a carrier hotel that also has DataBank amongst its tenants. CoreSite renewed its lease at the property in 2018; having been at the property for seven years at the time, the company expanded its existing 162,000 sq ft by an additional 17,000 sq ft.

“We are encouraged by our continuing strong attraction of retail and small scale leases, which are fundamental to our go-to-market strategy,” said Steve Smith, CoreSite’s Chief Revenue Officer. “We are focused on continual generation of profitable organic growth, attracting high-quality new logos, and creating incremental value to our customers and shareholders through the lease-up of our available capacity within our portfolio.”

Coresite’s data center portfolio is 83.4 percent occupied. The company has debts of $1.78 billion.

Switch Inc.

Switch declared revenue of $158.1 million, a Net Loss of $900,000, and Adjusted EBITDA of $76.9 million. Revenue was up on both Q2 of 2021 and Q3 of last year; Adjusted EBITDA was up on 2020 but down from Q2 this year. Net income was down from $13.2m last year and $9.7m in Q2.

"During the third quarter, Switch continued to build on its strong relationships with some of the world's largest enterprises while accelerating capital investment to meet client demand," said Rob Roy, Founder and CEO of Switch.

The company signed 20 contracts across 15 new companies this quarter, valued at a total of $4 million and 0.3MW. It signed $90 million worth of renewals or expansions for a total of 9.3MW.

Roy said the company signed a 3MW deal at The Rock Campus with a Fortune 5 global technology company specializing in hardware, software, and services in Austin. The deal represented $4 million in incremental annualized revenue and $30 million in total contract value, including renewals.

The company also said it also signed a multi-year expansion order totaling more than 1MW with a semiconductor customer at The Citadel Campus and The Keep Campus, representing $2.2 million of incremental annualized revenue, as well as an expansion deal with an integrated payment solutions customer at The Rock Campus totaling $2.5 million in total contract value.

"We are pleased by the continued trend of organic revenue acceleration and strong sales performance in the third quarter and year-to-date 2021 periods," added Gabe Nacht, CFO of Switch. "Seasonally elevated power costs affected our third quarter Adjusted EBITDA margin; however, we have already seen a normalization in power markets following the peak summer months. In addition, Switch is on track to exceed the projected $2 million of run-rate expense synergies from Data Foundry."

The company also declared its plans to change status to become a Real Estate Investment Trust by 2023.

Former Google Cloud executive Jonathan H. King joined Switch as Chief Revenue Officer. The company is due to comleted Austin 3 POD 2 (capacity 3MW) and Tahoe Reno 1 Power System 1 (capacity 10MW) before the end of the year.

As of September 2021, Switch's total debt was $1.5 billion.

Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain’s Revenues for the third quarter were $1.13 billion, compared with $1.04 billion in the third quarter of 2020, an increase of 9 percent. Net Income for the third quarter was $68.1 million compared with $38.6m in the Q3 2020. Adjusted EBITDA was $417.8 million, up 11.1 percent on 2020 from $376m.

Data centers represent around 8 percent of the company’s business, reporting data center revenue of $88.6m, a 15 percent increase quarter-over-quarter, and adjusted EBITDA of $35.1m, a 5 percent increase quarter-over-quarter.

The company said its Global Data Center business revenue increased 21.7 percent in the third quarter, a 21.2 percent increase compared to the third quarter of 2020. Iron Mountain has executed 22MW of new and expansion leasing I n2021 so far, signed an additional 2MW of new and expansion leases in Q3.

“Our third quarter performance demonstrates the continued strength of the business throughout the year, driven by our broad offerings, deep customer relationships, resilient business model, and strength of our team," said William L. Meaney, president and CEO of Iron Mountain. "Our Mountaineers have been executing well despite what continues to be a challenging environment, and we are pleased to continue to drive accelerated growth with continued strong uptake in our digital and SITAD offerings resulting in 19% year over year growth, strong storage growth of 3.2% with positive organic volume, and continued momentum in our Data Center business, which is well on track to deliver bookings in excess of 30 megawatts for the year."

The company said the 9MW phase 1 of development at its Frankfurt facility was due before the at of the year, as were phases 2 and 4 in Phoenix which will have a collective capacity of 10MW. All 19MW is fully-leased. In total, the company’s data centers are 85 percent occupied.

Cyxtera is yet to report results. We will update this as more results come in.