United Internet, the parent company of Sedo & 1and1.com among other companies, agreed to buy web hosting business Strato from Deutsche Telekom for around 600 million euros (US$629 million) in cash today.
According to reports “Deutsche Telekom bought Strato for €275 million ($287 million) in 2009.
Strato employs about 500 people in Germany and the Netherlands and has around 2 million customer contracts. In the last five years, annual sales have risen from about €90 million ($94 million) to an estimated €127 million ($133 million), with EBITDA growing from €30 million ($38 million) to an estimated €48.5 million ($51 million) over the same period.
The deal values Strato at 12.4 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), roughly in line with the multiple that U.S. peer Godaddy paid for Host Europe Group (HEG) a week ago.
Shares in United Internet were up 5.2 percent while Deutsche Telekom’s were up 0.6 percent.
