Oak Hill Capital Partners to Acquire ViaWest

DENVER, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- ViaWest, Inc. announced today that Oak Hill Capital Partners has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the company from its current owners, led by Trinity Equity Investors, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Quilvest.  Oak Hill Capital, a leading private equity firm and longstanding investor in the data center industry, is investing in partnership with ViaWest's current management team, led by Chairman and CEO Roy Dimoff. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.  

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Founded in 1999 by Mr. Dimoff and Chief Operating Officer Nancy Phillips, ViaWest is the largest privately-held, data center and managed services company in the United States.  Headquartered in Denver, ViaWest operates 16 enterprise-class data center facilities in five states, providing colocation and a comprehensive set of fully managed services to mid-sized and enterprise-level businesses.  The company offers cost-effective, highly secure, interconnected data center facilities designed to meet the needs of a wide range of business and public sector clients.  ViaWest provides these mission-critical technology infrastructure services to more than 1,000 customers today, and has secured additional growth capital to expand its capacity and service offerings as part of this transaction.

"Over its 11-year history, ViaWest has evolved into a clear market leader," said Roy Dimoff, Chairman and CEO. "With 17 acquisitions successfully completed, combined with a strong history of organic growth, our management team is eager to transition into our second phase of growth.  We are extremely pleased that our new financial sponsor is Oak Hill Capital, a partner that fully understands the industry and the opportunity. Similar to our current investment group, Oak Hill Capital has a long-standing history in our industry and a tremendous reputation for successful investments based on their partnership with management."    

Bob Morse, a partner of Oak Hill Capital, said, "Explosive growth in Internet traffic and a growing preference by all but the largest corporations to outsource their own data centers is driving tremendous demand for high-quality, stand-alone data center solutions.  ViaWest is ideally positioned to serve this growing demand, and we look forward to supporting the company's management team as they continue to build the franchise."

Sengal Selassie, founder and Managing Partner of Trinity Equity Investors, said, "We are delighted to have partnered with ViaWest for more than ten years.  The Trinity Equity team has enjoyed working alongside management, participating in the Company's tremendous growth, and helping the ViaWest management team build a leading service-focused enterprise.  ViaWest has built a tremendous reputation servicing mid-sized and Fortune 1000 companies' infrastructure space needs, and we are very proud of the ViaWest franchise."

Completion of the transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, is expected in the second quarter of 2010.  

Senior debt financing is being arranged by Royal Bank of Canada, and mezzanine financing is being provided by Barclays Structured Principal Investing Fund L.P. and Solar Capital Ltd.  RBC Daniels and Cowen and Company acted as financial advisors to ViaWest in the transaction.  Winston & Strawn LLP is serving as legal counsel to the largest shareholders of ViaWest. Hogan & Hartson LLP is serving as legal counsel to ViaWest. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is serving as legal counsel to Oak Hill Capital Partners.  

About ViaWest

Headquartered in Denver, ViaWest provides colocation and comprehensive managed services to mid-sized and enterprise level businesses. As a super-regional service provider ViaWest maintains 16 enterprise-class data center facilities in Colorado, Texas, Oregon, Utah, and Nevada, and offers broad expertise to furnish customers with leading technology infrastructure solutions, as well as the critical resources to support their unique business needs. ViaWest currently serves thousands of customers nationwide including Frontier Airlines, The Denver Broncos, Chipotle, and Northrop Grumman. The company was also recently named 'Technology Company of the Year' 2008 by CSIA, and one of 'Colorado's Top 10 Companies to Work For'.  For additional information on ViaWest, please visit www.ViaWest.com or call 1-877-448-9378.

About Oak Hill Capital Partners

Oak Hill Capital Partners is a private equity firm with more than $8.4 billion of committed capital from leading entrepreneurs, endowments, foundations, corporations, pension funds and global financial institutions.  Robert M. Bass is the lead investor.  Over a period of more than 24 years, the professionals at Oak Hill Capital Partners and its predecessors have invested in more than 60 significant private equity transactions including several companies in the data center industry, most notably SAVVIS, Inc. in 2004 and TelecityGroup plc in 2005.  Oak Hill Capital Partners is one of several Oak Hill partnerships, each of which has a dedicated and independent management team.  These Oak Hill partnerships comprise over $28 billion of investment capital across multiple asset classes.  For more information about Oak Hill Capital Partners, visit www.oakhillcapital.com.

SOURCE ViaWest, Inc.